Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (39 page)

Johnson.

He deleted the
message and emptied the trash of the e-mail program. Drew dug through the
folders on his hard drive, deleting any trace of cached e-mail messages. He
knew the exercise to be futile from his days in IT. Contrary to the traditional
warnings about backing up your data, Drew knew of countless criminals convicted
by FBI specialists who had retrieved kiddy porn or cooked books from computers
dumped in a landfill, thrown into swimming pools, or trampled by a pickup
truck.

The morning
oozed into afternoon as the rest of the office continued under the guise of business
as usual. Johnson’s dark office was anything but usual, and everyone knew it. Drew
pushed the volume slider up with his mouse until the audio from the streaming
news clip came alive.

“. . . have
officially declared the death a homicide. Police have released the victim’s
name. She is thirty-four-year-old Vivian Cabmel, from Oak Park.”

Drew’s eyes
widened as a photograph of Vivian zoomed out from the screen with precision. The
picture was taken at least ten years ago. Drew caught his breath, forgetting
how beautiful Vivian had been in her twenties. Time, stress, and conflict had
sapped her. Vivian’s dark hair tumbled about her shoulders, fanned out with a
thin strap on each side holding her cocktail dress in place. She had a drink in
one hand and her eyes glittered with fun, mischief, and sensuality. Drew
realized that Vivian was pretty enough to become the new media-darling mystery,
and still young enough for them to exploit her vivacious sexuality.

Drew grabbed the
slider and pulled it back a few seconds so he could see the photograph again,
this time attempting to listen to what the reporter was saying.

“Folks in Oak
Park are saddened by the tragic loss of Vivian. We spoke to residents of Oak
Park Towers, the apartment complex Vivian called home.”

The screen
paused and hiccupped as the video feed tunneled over the cable to Drew’s
computer. An elderly woman appeared with a huge microphone in front of her
face. Her blue eyes and blue hair appeared washed out under the hot lights of
the mobile recording unit set up in the lobby of the apartment building.

“She was so
nice. She never bothered anyone. One time, my dog got loose and she helped me
hang missing flyers all over the apartment building.”

The video cut
to a balding man in his late forties, crumbs from a microwaveable meal clinging
to his beard and stains dotting a white, sleeveless T-shirt, the kind of person
the police would be considering a suspect in the investigation.

“Viv smiled for
everyone. She was polite and courteous, but she kept to herself. She never
bothered no one. I hope they catch this son of a—”

The video cut
the blooming obscenity and pulled back to the news desk, where the anchor
looked at the camera with a tilted head. He shook it from side to side, careful
not to disturb the coiffed, thinning hairs that makeup had positioned to cover
his widow’s peak.

“Such a shame. We
have Sal Surmen with us today. Sal is an expert on serial killers. He’s helped
the FBI track and catch several over the past few years, and has published his
memoirs,
To Catch a Killer: My Time Hunting Crime
. Welcome to Channel 7,
Sal. That sure is a catchy title, if you don’t mind the pun. Can you tell us
how you came up with it and where the idea for the book came from?”

Drew smacked
the monitor with his right hand, startling a man in a cubicle on the other side
of the row.
Opportunistic vultures
, he thought. He turned back to the
screen and pushed the slider to the right, waiting for the video stream to
catch up, and then listened again.

“. . . on
March fourth. I’ll be sure to get that on my Kindle,” said the anchor with a
wink to the camera. “What can you tell us about the Vivian Cabmel
investigation?”

Sal laid his
book flat on the news desk and folded his hands together next to the white,
ceramic coffee mug facing the camera, the network logo perfectly aligned for
maximum visibility.

“We’re looking
for a sadistic, ritualistic killer. He’s probably murdered dozens of women. Chances
are they were young, vibrant, attractive women in their prime. He binds them
somewhere, maybe a basement or storage unit, rapes them repeatedly, and then
mutilates their bodies before disposing of them.”

The anchor sat
back, putting on his best incredulous look. “Rape, murder, dismemberment. Sounds
sick.”

Drew wanted to
leap through the screen and knock the surgically enhanced smile off the
anchorman’s face.

“It’s what gets
some men off. They can’t have consensual sex like normal human beings. They
have to take it forcefully, like an animal.”

Drew sat back
in his chair as the anchorman and his self-published expert continued talking
about the grisly details of rape and murder.

He closed his
eyes and rubbed his temples with the index finger on both hands. When he opened
them, Brian stood at the edge of his desk.

“How ya doin’,
bro?” he asked. Drew shrugged. He clicked the streaming-video window closed,
exposing an empty spreadsheet underneath. “Working hard, eh?”

“Are you
writing a story? Did you get transferred out of design and into media
relations?”

Brian raised
both palms to Drew and took a step backwards. “Easy, man. Came over to see how
you’ve been doing. Me and some of the ladies noticed you ain’t quite been
yourself lately.”

Drew snickered.
“You and the Oprah crew? That counts for something.”

Brian pulled a
chair from against the wall, spun it around backwards, and sat with his arms on
the top of the backrest. Drew waited, knowing the macho move would be followed
with ridiculous “bro-worry” conversation. He wrinkled his nose at the cloying
aroma of Brian’s aftershave.

“Look. You and
I have been friends for a long time. I’m worried about you. We’re all a bit
skittish with this shit about Vivian. And having Johnson out today with no
explanation doesn’t bode well. Folks are saying he was sticking it to her,
using his authority to get some ass. They think she may have threatened him
with blackmail, a sex tape or something.”

“Bullshit,”
replied Drew.

“Whatever. I
know you don’t dig office politics.”

“No, bro,”
replied Drew, slathering the term with heavy sarcasm. “What I don’t dig is
listening to your insincere bullshit that you hope to weave together into a
story that you can use to make the women in the office all wet. I don’t dig you
dragging Vivian’s situation into a fictional, sexual affair with that asshole. She’d
never touch him.”

“How do you
know?” asked Brian.

“I knew Vivian
better than anyone here. She would have never touched that prick. Ever.”

“I didn’t come
here to slam Viv and piss you off.”

“Well you did. Both.”

Brian stood and
swung the chair out. He tossed it against the wall where the top chipped the drywall,
sending a puff of white dust into the air.

***

Drew came home
to Molly sitting on the couch, watching the same regurgitated footage of
Vivian’s body being removed from the crime scene. The murder led every network’s
newscast, even though the reporters had no more information than they did the
day before. The picture of Vivian holding the drink became her. It hovered on
the screen whenever anyone spoke of the crime as if she existed in that single
moment, and then as a battered, mutilated corpse tossed in the weeds like
roadside garbage.

“Can you turn
that the fuck off? The kids are going to hear it.”

Molly grabbed
the remote and hit the off button, pitching the invisible infrared waves at the
television as if to prove the action required effort on her part, and her
frustration at being told what to do. “Do you have to be such a dick about it?”

Drew fell into
the couch next to her and shook his head. He heard Billy screech from somewhere
upstairs as his little sister’s footsteps raced across the floor. “Work is
crazy now. Everyone is shaken, and Johnson didn’t show today.”

“His streak?”

“Yeah, ended.”

Molly let out a
long, slow whistle. “That prick’s got nothing else to live for,” she said,
smiling at Drew. “But I’ve got something you live for.”

She
curled a leg around his and slid her delicate fingers inside the waistband of
his underwear. He felt her hand move down and the brush of her breasts beneath
the sweatshirt, unencumbered by a bra.

Drew shot off
the couch and grabbed the stack of mail from the end table. “Billy have hockey
tonight?” he asked.

Molly pushed a
lock of her hair behind one ear and crossed her arms. “No.”

“I’m going to
eat and then go to bed. I need the sleep.”

Molly looked at
the clock on the table and saw the small hand hanging on the six. She tilted
her head to the side and picked up the remote control. “Dinner is on the
counter,” she said.

Drew used his
right hand on the railing to make it to the second floor. Billy and Sara ran
over his feet from one bedroom to the other, involved in a game requiring
running and screaming.

“Downstairs!”
Drew said.

His
voice echoed off the walls of the narrow hallway and Sara jumped as if she had
stepped on a bee.

“We’re just
playin’—”

“I don’t care
what you’re playing. Go downstairs, now. I’m going to bed.”

Sara touched
Billy’s arm before exploding into laughter and bounding down the steps and
beyond his reach. Billy looked at his dad. He stared into Drew’s eyes for a
moment before calling after his sister and jumping down the steps.

Drew went
through the motions of his nightly ritual until he found himself in bed. The
rest of the family continued on downstairs, lights blazing and nobody mindful
of the fact that he wanted to sleep.

It’s like
I’m dead
, he thought.
Worse. It’s like I never existed at all.

He meant to stand
up and slam the bedroom door shut. Drew wanted to rattle the windows and move
enough air that Molly would come upstairs to make sure he was fine. But he did
not have the strength to slam the door or confront his wife. Instead, Drew
pulled the comforter to his chin and rolled over to face the window. The moon
dispelled some of the midwinter dreariness that arrived with darkness at five
in the afternoon. A solid snowpack reflected the moon’s light upward, creating
a red-tinged atmosphere. Drew looked at the scene and thought it resembled the
Martian landscapes from all of those bad, science-fiction movies. The streetlights
added to the red hue. Ice gathered on the window screen, frozen in long strands
and reminding Drew of another household task he never completed.

At least the
screens will already be down when spring arrives. That’s one less thing she’ll
have to bitch about.

Drew’s body
folded in on itself as exhaustion dulled the rest of his senses. Before the
bedside clock read seven, Drew slept.

***

“The fucker
let me go years ‘fore I heard his voice again. Some of my buddies were real
messed up from what they’d seen. The soldiers coming back from ‘Nam called it
post-traumatic stress disorder. We called it casualties of war. Must’ve been
four, five years since the war ended. We managed to stop the Nazis and kill
Hitler. I know what you’re thinking, and no, he didn’t off himself. That was
spun to keep us looking like the good guys. We shot that fucker dead. I seen
the proof.

“Anyway,
I thought I had put most of the war behind me. Got a job at the mill and was
bringing home enough coin to get the family going. Me and the wife had a few
little ones running around and bought into a new housing plan. They built the
two-bedroom places on the ridge above the mills. You had to drive now, instead
of walking. Gave a man like me the feeling that I was somehow removed from the
dirty, hot, deadly blast furnace that I stood next to every day. Sure, the
smoke and smog rolled up to the ridge with the winds. Dropped so much shit on
us that she couldn’t hang clothes out to dry. We had an above-ground pool
installed, and I had to sweep that fucker daily or the bottom would be covered
with the black filth that US Steel blasted out the chimneys.

“Must’ve
been ’49 or ’50 when I spoke to Gaki again. I had hosted a poker game with the
boys and things got a bit rowdy. A few jokers from the Navy joined us. If you
sit at a card table and see an anchor tattooed on a forearm, get the hell out
of there. Those boys spend weeks, months, floating in the middle of the godforsaken
ocean. They get damned good at poker.

“The game
ended and I grabbed a fistful of poker chips and three fingers of Jack before
the table cleared and everyone left. I think it was midsummer. Shit was hot,
heavy. I wonder if Gaki found me that night ‘cause he felt at home, like he was
back prowling the jungles looking for shit to eat.”

Drew turned and
sweat broke out on his forehead. He felt the pace of the dream quickening and,
like before, was powerless to stop it or to wake up.

“I heard the
moaning and thought it had woken me up, but it hadn’t. It was happening in my
dream. I know that now, but didn’t realize it back then. I was lying on my back
with the wife in her twin bed, our bedside table between us. Man had to get
damn creative to make babies in those days, what with separate beds and all. I
looked up towards the doorway and saw a shadow pass by. It wasn’t one of those
tricks your mind plays on you in the middle of the night. Wasn’t one of those
noises that convince you a monster is prowling the house. No, this was real.

“I
saw it come back the other way and knew Gaki wanted to talk, but for some
reason, he wanted to do it on his terms. Figuring I had no reason to invite the
eater of shit into the room where the mother of my children slept, I got up. I
pulled a robe around my waist and hitched my boxers up before walking out of
the bedroom. I caught glimpses of the shadow as it turned the corner of the
landing towards the main floor. I got to the bottom of the steps. The house
shook and the floorboards creaked like there was a whole bunch of folks walking
around in there.