Museum visitors do strange things. They sneak in food. They don’t watch their kids. They don’t read signs. They try and convert you to Christianity. They lie. They complain about lighting, crying children, the size of artifacts. They steal. Being warned about a visitor in the King Tut exhibit was always reserved for the especially strange. They slurred their words, or smelled of weed, or yelled at garbage cans.
This, however, was altogether different.
For one, Bea warned us in person. She never did that; she’d get on the radio and inform everyone at once, if she’d say anything at all. Even then, it was usually a team lead who told us these things. In any case, this was the most I’d spoken to her in months.
I’d never seen her look so serious. She usually was, but it was an authority figure seriousness, a cold professionalism that demonstrated her position and fit not at all with our otherwise casual, friendly work environment. This time she didn’t look authoritative. For some reason she looked diminished, like she wanted to be anywhere but here. There was something strange about her manner that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” She said. I nodded, confused, and she looked around, as if checking to make sure the coast was clear. My gallery was deserted, but that seemed not to matter.
She leaned in toward me and lowered her voice. “We’re going to be having some…unusual visitors coming in. They’ll show up at eight-o-clock, sharp. They won’t stay long; I’ve never known them to be here longer than an hour.” Here she took a deep breath, and I could tell that what she was about to say next was what she had really come here to say. “Whatever you do, do not talk to them. Do not interact with them in any way. I mean it. If you do, they’ll be able to see you.”
“See me?” What on earth was that supposed to mean? “What kind of visitors are they?”
“They’re…” Bea let the sentence hang in the air for a minute, then shook her head. “You’ll know it when you see them. You’ll get it, trust me.”
Before I could utter another word, she turned and walked away. I stood there, stunned for a moment, and then it hit me. I suddenly understood why she was acting the way she was.
She was afraid.
****
They came in exactly when Bea said they would: eight-o-clock on the dot. Bea herself had deserted us--shuttered herself inside her office, most likely--a cowardly, but wise, decision. There was simply no reason for her to be there. If something went wrong, there was nothing she could have done. It would have been between us, and them.
The lack of a speech before the introductory video played in the theater was my first clue. The gallery supervisor in the theater position was supposed to tell visitors what they weren’t allowed to do. No eating. No drinking. No gum. No photography. No re-entry. We were supposed to tell visitors that the video was narrated by Harrison Ford, and that they wouldn’t be needing their audio guides in the theater. None of that was said.
The video started, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. There was a coldness there that shouldn’t have been, and that wasn’t all. The sound on the video was all wrong; it was as though a demonic presence was trying to imitate Harrison Ford’s voice, and had in the process stolen the sweetness and majesty of the background music.
Just before the video ended, the supervisor in the theater got on the radio and, ignoring proper radio protocol, said just two terrifying, trembling words:
“They’re coming.”
The music swelled, and the door opened.
****
The first thing that hit me was the smell; sweet, cloying, and rotten. It put me in mind of how I imagined the houses of the dead would smell like, in Ancient Egypt. It was as though someone had tried to mask the scent of death with sweet perfumes and citrus fruit. The perfumes were powerful, but the odor of decay lingered beneath it all, and I could feel my stomach twist into a knot.
They entered without a sound. There were ten of them, some shuffling ponderously, others appearing to glide. They brought with them a stillness that fell upon the room like a thick grey curtain. The air grew cold. The lights dimmed. Even the music had stopped, replaced with a soft, buzzing white noise that filled my head as well as my ears. The gallery descended into gloom. All was silent except for the sudden, sharp cry I was barely able to bite back.
None of the visitors were alive.
I backed against the wall, my heart pounding so hard that in the stillness I could hear nothing else. I knew instantly what Bea had meant by her warning. She needn’t have said it; I had no intention of letting them see me. And as for what would happen if I did, I decided I didn’t want to know. So I stood flattened against the wall, staying near the theater door, in case I needed to escape. And I watched them.
One had no eyes. Another was missing the skin around his jaw. Still another had no jaw at all. One woman in a long gray dress had a curtain of stringy hair that covered her face, and a dark red stain that covered her front. A skeletal man wore a faded cloak that swept the ground, leaving a smear of something black in his wake. There was even one who was over nine feet tall, his head bowed low with his chin touching his chest, impossibly long arms hanging limply at his side.
They moved as if in a dream, smooth and unnaturally silent. Though their feet touched the floor, they seemed to bear no weight. The silence deepened, until even the radio static buzz had softened to a hiss. The lights flickered, like lit torches. The room grew colder, and despite being in a daze I noticed that I could see my breath, clouds of light mist that disappeared into the darkness. And that smell, that stench of death, persisted. The dead spread out in two straight lines among the artifacts and regarded them closely.
Almost, I thought, as if they were regular visitors.
If I’d been in the mood, I would have laughed. It painted an absurd picture—the dead here to visit a museum, like the thousands of vacationers and families we welcomed every year. Where did they come from? Why here? How did Bea know they were coming?
I stood and stared for a few moments longer--long enough to regard the ectoplasmic trail that one of the dead was leaving behind--until I noticed them gathering at the other end of the gallery. Their movements had looked almost choreographed, the two straight lines, each individual a set distance apart from the others. They never got in each other’s way. They spent the same amount of time looking at each artifact, then turned and moved to another. Now they gathered at the end of the gallery, all of them, as if by prior agreement, walking away from the artifact they were looking at simultaneously. They grouped together, and I realized that they were preparing to move to the next room.
Backing as far as I could into my corner, I got on the radio. To this day, I don’t know how I found my voice.
“Anna, they’re in your gallery.”
There was no answer, but there didn’t need to be. I knew my coworker had likely found her own safe corner to hide in, and that the dead had entered. The silence, the gloom, had not lifted, but I knew they would not return to my gallery, and breathed slightly easier. Despite this, the tension was palpable, and I hoped no one would be foolish enough to neglect Bea’s instructions.
The minutes crawled. My legs finally found the strength to move and I crept through my gallery, wondering what I was going to do with the black slime on the carpet from the man in the cloak. I picked up my radio to call for cleanup (was it a body fluid spill? I couldn’t begin to guess) then stopped when I noticed that it was slowly disappearing, fading into the carpet like disappearing ink.
Every so often, I would hear a call come over the radio. It seemed that the others had followed my lead, and decided to warn the next person that the dead were coming.
“Larry, they’re in your gallery.”
“Sandra, they’re in your gallery.”
“Vicky, they’re in your gallery.”
I noted the names as they were said, counting down the galleries that they had entered. We used our names, rather than the customary gallery titles (Gallery 1, 2, or 3). It was as though we had decided that we needed some way to distinguish ourselves as living human beings. Finally, after an eternity, the staff member at the exit came over the radio, her voice tremulous with relief:
“They’re gone.”
It was as if the words had broken the spell. The lights brightened. Warmth filled the room, as did the music. The smell disappeared. I took several deep breaths, each one easier than the last. I stood for awhile, unsure what to do. Then, as my sanity and senses appeared to return to normal, I set about cleaning the cases.
****
There were a few things that I found out later, as our team lead had come around to make sure everyone was all right, and to compare notes on what we had all witnessed:
There had still been visitors in the last gallery when the dead had gone through. It had not occurred to me that this would be the case, and Vicky, the gallery supervisor in charge, had been about as terrified as I imagined I would have been, had I been there. She stood as near as she dared, keeping a close eye on both sets of visitors, living and dead. “I felt like I had to protect them, or something,” she said, “though god only knows what I would’ve done if something had gone wrong.” Her fears turned out to be baseless—the living visitors had not been able to see the dead, and vice versa, though the living did remark as they left on how “awfully cold” it had gotten in the gallery.
In the gallery marked The Treasury Room, there is a display with a gabled wooden box, a simple, plain thing, with dark handles and little paint. Inside the box had been two fetuses, withered little mummies, both girls. They had been Tutankhamun’s stillborn daughters, in an era long past. According to Sandra, who worked in that gallery, the woman with the bloody dress had spent the longest amount of time at that particular case, just staring. She had been the last to join the others, and before she broke her gaze, she put a white hand, tenderly, on the glass. The handprint she’d left behind disappeared without a trace after she’d left the room.
According to Bea, the dead had come to see the exhibit in every city it had been in. No one knew how or why, but their routine was always the same. Bea would know that they were coming when she would walk into her office and discover a single black rose sitting on her desk. They always came at night, at the last entry time, and spent the same amount of time inside the exhibit. Once they exited, they’d vanish again to parts unknown. In all the time Bea had worked with Museum Exhibitions International, only one person had broken the rules, a security guard who’d tried to reach out and touch one of the dead. When asked what had happened next, Bea merely went white and shook her head, refusing to speak of it. Her hands, it was said, were shaking.
Still, despite the trailing ectoplasm, the foul smell, the cold, the darkness, and the constant fear of unspeakable horrors, we all agreed on one thing:
They were the best behaved visitors we’d ever had.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Family (PART 2, FINALE)
The drive continued on. There were no stars overhead, no glowing moon. Just the road, lined intermittently with pale orange sodium lights, and the thickening wilderness around it. The highway was about to end, and it would soon be the isolated, abandoned back road that no one wanted to drive on at night. Roland wasn’t sure he wanted to drive on it himself, but he knew he was almost there. Just a few more miles, and he would be back in control again.
The turn-off appeared quickly, a sharp turn into dark nothingness, blink and you miss it. The road was paved, though God knew why. No one lived back here. No one but the old lady with twenty cats, and the alcoholic redneck with the beat-up pickup truck. And, of course, Roland and his demons. Each minded their own business, never questioning, or even noticing, each other’s suspicious behaviors. They were too far away from each other to bother. Roland’s victims could scream all they wanted, and no one would hear them.
Roland drove through the trees, his foot now flat on the gas pedal. The transmission protested a little as he forced the car onward, but still, he crawled along the road. He felt as though he was driving through molasses, or towing a weight too heavy for his midsize vehicle behind him. The needle on the speedometer, incredibly, wavered between 75 and 80 miles per hour. Then why did he feel so sluggish?
And still, still she stared. It had been hours since he’d seen her face, but her gaze burned into the back of his head, penetrating into the deepest trenches of his consciousness.
She spoke.
“Mister, please. I have a family,” she said.
Normally, when the girls said something like this, Roland turned on the syrup. Not to worry, he would assure them, you’ll see your family soon enough. We’re just going to stop at my house, it’ll be real quick, I promise. He prided himself on his winning smile, the one that all the girls back in college had loved. Most of his victims calmed down after that; they believed him, trusted his soothing voice, his quiet words. But not this time, not this girl. Her voice had sounded pitiful, but Roland knew better than to assume that she was the one she was pitying. His simmering unease, his creeping paranoia, suddenly erupted into white-hot hatred, and his fingers gripped the steering wheel harder. He yanked the rearview mirror back to its normal position. She was in shadow except for her eyes, blue icicles lit by a narrow strip of light. The sight of them only made him angrier.
“Shut up.” He said. “I should think that you, of all people, know what I am by now. I’ve been doing this for twenty years, do you think I give a shit about your family? I’ve seen many of them, on the news, talking about their missing little girl. Do you know what I do whenever I watch those features? I play a little drinking game. Every time the mother cries, I take a shot. Every time the father tries to appear stoic on camera, I take a shot. Every time I see a photo or video of the kid whose naked body I just dumped in the woods, I take a shot. It’s fun, you should try it sometime. Except you can’t, because you’re about to become one of those kids. So you might as well sit back and relax, kid, because these are the last moments of your-”
“You don’t understand.” The girl’s voice cut through Roland’s rant like a knife in the dark, and Roland, in spite of himself, fell silent. “That wasn’t a plea. It was a warning.”
Roland turned in his seat, the chill in his spine returning. “What are you talking about?” He said, desperately trying to stop his voice from shaking.
The girl said nothing. She lifted her arm, and pointed.
Roland turned back around…and slammed on the brakes.
The figure in the road had neither flinched nor startled when Roland had stopped in front of it, despite being close enough to touch the hood. It had pale arms that hung limply at its side. It wore blue jeans and a striped T-shirt. Everything from the mid-torso upwards disappeared into blackness. Roland sat there for a minute, mouth agape. The idea that this was his drunken neighbor, the man a mile up the road, flitted briefly through his mind, but didn’t pan out. This man was too thin, too well-dressed. And anyway, the neighbor would not have left his house on foot—if he went anywhere, he drove.
“Idiot, what are you doing in the middle of the road? Get out of my way!” Roland shouted. The figure did not budge. Roland tapped the horn, then, when the figure still did not move, pounded it with his palm. The seconds ticked away into minutes, and still, the figure stood in the road, motionless.
Roland thought briefly of backing up the car and moving around the man, but the road was too narrow, the embankment on either side of it too steep and thick with trees. And at any rate, he was no longer in the mood to be charitable.
“Fuck this,” he said, and stepped on the gas.
The car moved an inch, then Roland heard a bang. The figure in the road had slammed his hands on the hood of the car, and it lurched to a sudden stop. Roland looked on, panting like a marathon runner, his heart pounding. In a blind panic, he slammed his foot on the gas.
The engine roared. The tires squealed and smoked. And the car did not move.
Roland let up on the gas, then stepped on it again, pushing the engine to its limit. The figure’s hands sat on the hood of the car, and though he couldn’t be sure, Roland thought he saw dents in the thick metal. Whatever it was, the figure was holding Roland hostage.
That was when he heard the rustling, the footsteps coming towards the car. They were all around him, shadows looming near each of the passenger windows, and he even felt a presence standing behind the vehicle. And there were more sounds, more stirrings. Roland thought he could hear whispering, mocking words he couldn't understand, punctuated by soft laughter echoing in the darkness. He looked back at the figure holding the hood of his car. He could see glowing, red eyes, and pale lips pulled back into a grin too large to be human. The teeth ended in neat, sharp points.
He turned and looked at the little girl. She stared back, emotionless.
“You did this.” He said.
“No,” the girl said, “you did.”
The driver’s side window shattered. Long, ropy arms pulled him out of the car, as easily as a little girl pulled a rag doll out of a toy box. All around him were eyes, everywhere, always, glowing, red eyes.
Roland's screams were heard by no one.
The turn-off appeared quickly, a sharp turn into dark nothingness, blink and you miss it. The road was paved, though God knew why. No one lived back here. No one but the old lady with twenty cats, and the alcoholic redneck with the beat-up pickup truck. And, of course, Roland and his demons. Each minded their own business, never questioning, or even noticing, each other’s suspicious behaviors. They were too far away from each other to bother. Roland’s victims could scream all they wanted, and no one would hear them.
Roland drove through the trees, his foot now flat on the gas pedal. The transmission protested a little as he forced the car onward, but still, he crawled along the road. He felt as though he was driving through molasses, or towing a weight too heavy for his midsize vehicle behind him. The needle on the speedometer, incredibly, wavered between 75 and 80 miles per hour. Then why did he feel so sluggish?
And still, still she stared. It had been hours since he’d seen her face, but her gaze burned into the back of his head, penetrating into the deepest trenches of his consciousness.
She spoke.
“Mister, please. I have a family,” she said.
Normally, when the girls said something like this, Roland turned on the syrup. Not to worry, he would assure them, you’ll see your family soon enough. We’re just going to stop at my house, it’ll be real quick, I promise. He prided himself on his winning smile, the one that all the girls back in college had loved. Most of his victims calmed down after that; they believed him, trusted his soothing voice, his quiet words. But not this time, not this girl. Her voice had sounded pitiful, but Roland knew better than to assume that she was the one she was pitying. His simmering unease, his creeping paranoia, suddenly erupted into white-hot hatred, and his fingers gripped the steering wheel harder. He yanked the rearview mirror back to its normal position. She was in shadow except for her eyes, blue icicles lit by a narrow strip of light. The sight of them only made him angrier.
“Shut up.” He said. “I should think that you, of all people, know what I am by now. I’ve been doing this for twenty years, do you think I give a shit about your family? I’ve seen many of them, on the news, talking about their missing little girl. Do you know what I do whenever I watch those features? I play a little drinking game. Every time the mother cries, I take a shot. Every time the father tries to appear stoic on camera, I take a shot. Every time I see a photo or video of the kid whose naked body I just dumped in the woods, I take a shot. It’s fun, you should try it sometime. Except you can’t, because you’re about to become one of those kids. So you might as well sit back and relax, kid, because these are the last moments of your-”
“You don’t understand.” The girl’s voice cut through Roland’s rant like a knife in the dark, and Roland, in spite of himself, fell silent. “That wasn’t a plea. It was a warning.”
Roland turned in his seat, the chill in his spine returning. “What are you talking about?” He said, desperately trying to stop his voice from shaking.
The girl said nothing. She lifted her arm, and pointed.
Roland turned back around…and slammed on the brakes.
The figure in the road had neither flinched nor startled when Roland had stopped in front of it, despite being close enough to touch the hood. It had pale arms that hung limply at its side. It wore blue jeans and a striped T-shirt. Everything from the mid-torso upwards disappeared into blackness. Roland sat there for a minute, mouth agape. The idea that this was his drunken neighbor, the man a mile up the road, flitted briefly through his mind, but didn’t pan out. This man was too thin, too well-dressed. And anyway, the neighbor would not have left his house on foot—if he went anywhere, he drove.
“Idiot, what are you doing in the middle of the road? Get out of my way!” Roland shouted. The figure did not budge. Roland tapped the horn, then, when the figure still did not move, pounded it with his palm. The seconds ticked away into minutes, and still, the figure stood in the road, motionless.
Roland thought briefly of backing up the car and moving around the man, but the road was too narrow, the embankment on either side of it too steep and thick with trees. And at any rate, he was no longer in the mood to be charitable.
“Fuck this,” he said, and stepped on the gas.
The car moved an inch, then Roland heard a bang. The figure in the road had slammed his hands on the hood of the car, and it lurched to a sudden stop. Roland looked on, panting like a marathon runner, his heart pounding. In a blind panic, he slammed his foot on the gas.
The engine roared. The tires squealed and smoked. And the car did not move.
Roland let up on the gas, then stepped on it again, pushing the engine to its limit. The figure’s hands sat on the hood of the car, and though he couldn’t be sure, Roland thought he saw dents in the thick metal. Whatever it was, the figure was holding Roland hostage.
That was when he heard the rustling, the footsteps coming towards the car. They were all around him, shadows looming near each of the passenger windows, and he even felt a presence standing behind the vehicle. And there were more sounds, more stirrings. Roland thought he could hear whispering, mocking words he couldn't understand, punctuated by soft laughter echoing in the darkness. He looked back at the figure holding the hood of his car. He could see glowing, red eyes, and pale lips pulled back into a grin too large to be human. The teeth ended in neat, sharp points.
He turned and looked at the little girl. She stared back, emotionless.
“You did this.” He said.
“No,” the girl said, “you did.”
The driver’s side window shattered. Long, ropy arms pulled him out of the car, as easily as a little girl pulled a rag doll out of a toy box. All around him were eyes, everywhere, always, glowing, red eyes.
Roland's screams were heard by no one.
Family (PART 1)
He saw her in the parking lot, waiting outside the store. She looked to be about six years old, and he was probably right—he’d gotten good at guessing ages. She sat on a bench sucking on a bloodred lolly, her pale blonde hair in pigtails. She wore a tiny pink t-shirt with a tiny pair of blue jeans, a tiny pair of white sneakers on her feet. Little girls never wore dresses anymore. That was Roland’s lament these days, but even he knew it didn’t matter very much. She wouldn’t be needing those clothes very long anyway. Dresses sure were easier to take off than jeans, but he had shears.
He stared at her for a minute, watching her suck on her candy. She had bight blue eyes and pale skin. It wasn’t his normal catch (blondes were, after all, rarer), but Roland wasn’t picky. While some had a preferred look, he took all kinds—white, black, dark hair, light hair, fat, thin—but only girls, not boys. Never boys. He wasn’t a queer, after all.
The girl took a bite of the lolly, munching on the glassy pieces with loud, wet crunching sounds. Once it was gone, she hopped off the bench and threw the stick in the garbage, her lips and tongue a bright red. She stepped off the sidewalk and into the street, making sure (Roland was mildly impressed that she knew this) to look both ways before crossing the street. She toddled slowly up the lane, her fingers clutching her t-shirt.
Roland couldn’t believe his luck. He hadn’t planned on taking her now—he typically watched them for awhile before learning their habits and gathering a strategy—but the opportunity presented itself too perfectly to pass up. He threw his cigarette on the ground and crouched beside his car, lying in wait.
What foolish parents they were, letting her wander the parking lot on her own. Roland was surprised; most were more cautious these days. Nobody left their kid in the car anymore, mostly out of fear that they’d be accused of letting them roast to death. And leaving them outside on their own seemed to invite the bad guys, the ones like Roland. Though stranger kidnapping was very rare (kids were more likely to be snatched by a relative, Roland knew), everyone feared it. They feared it the way they feared airplane crashes, even though cars were more dangerous.
He challenged himself, taking them this way. Most kids were snatched on their way to school, or while playing outside. Public parking lots were comparatively safer for kids, or riskier for Roland. Large public spaces with lots of adults around in broad daylight were foolhardy places…but sometimes Roland got lucky.
He lay in wait beside the car, watching, waiting for her to cross his path. He had a very small timeframe. If he didn’t catch her, she would go screaming for an adult, and his cover would be blown. And he was getting sick of having to move around. His heart began to pound in anticipation.
He saw her. He caught a flash of pink t-shirt and blonde hair, and within an instant he was upon her. Her body grew tense underneath his grasp, but to his surprise, she did not wriggle. Nor did she scream—Roland had clamped a hand over her mouth, but there’d been no need. He carried her, like a stiff lawn ornament, to the car, opening the back seat and shoving her inside.
“Mister, are you kidnapping me?” She said as he strapped her into the seat. She said it almost mockingly, as though it were a game.
“Kidnapping? Nah. You’re gonna come with me, your Uncle Roland. We’re gonna play games. You like games?”
The girl did not answer.
“Well, you’re gonna like the games I got. You just be a good girl and be quiet, okay?”
The girl did not answer. Roland shrugged and pulled out of the parking lot, still unable to believe his luck.
He merged into traffic and got on the freeway, tuning the radio to an oldies station, and flipped on the cruise control. Late afternoon was fading into evening, and the sun sank lower in the sky. He had a long drive, and he wanted to be home by nightfall. He adjusted the rearview mirror so that he could see her, sitting in the backseat. He liked to watch their faces as he drove.
She was so quiet. So quiet. It was unusual for his victims, but it had happened before. Most of them would cry, some loudly, some quietly, shrieking sobs and barely-audible sniffles. Others would scream at him from the backseat, telling him that their daddies would save them, that the police would hear about it, and come for them. Still others thought it was a game, that they would drive around awhile and then go home to their families. The few that had made no noise just sat, pale and shaking, refusing to look him in the eye.
This one did not shake. She stared instead, a deep, probing stare that filled Roland’s vision from the rearview mirror, even out of the corners of his eyes. But it wasn’t even the staring—though that was unnerving in and of itself—that fed his sense of growing unease. It was the coldness behind it, the utter lack of emotion. She didn’t appear to blink.
She was not at all afraid. Though this too had happened before—some of them had looked relatively carefree until he brought out the knives—he had the impression that what he was looking at now was not a display of childish naivete, but of knowing; of sheer, cold clarity. She knew what he was, and she watched him like a cat eyeing a mouse.
Roland shook himself a bit, refusing to acknowledge the chill that went up his spine. For the very first time, he adjusted the rearview mirror, no longer able to stand those eyes. His hands had gone cold.
The drive was longer than he thought. The sun appeared to sink faster in the sky, bright yellow rays fading to orange, then red, then violet. But the road stretched onward, a long straight line lengthening in the darkness. Road signs that had appeared far away a mile ago approached slowly, and he never seemed quite able to close the distance. He passed them after what felt like minutes, hours longer than he should have. And still she stared.
The gas station appeared on the right, and he turned into it, turning the wheel more harshly than he intended. The car jerked into the parking lot, and both he and the girl slid a little in response to its momentum. He turned off the car and left it without a word, slamming the door behind him and stumbling into the convenience store.
Bright fluorescent light assaulted him from all sides, and he found he could not move until his eyes had fully adjusted. He wandered aimlessly around, staring at the neat rows of brightly colored labels, of candy and chips housed in plastic packages. He passed all the rows, the millions of rows, until he reached the last aisle, the refrigerated drinks. He opened one and pulled out a bottle, barely reading the label before opening it and throwing his head back, draining half the bottle. He screwed the cap back on and took a few long, deep breaths.
He had to get ahold of himself. The cold liquid he’d forced down his throat had made him realize this much, though the fog in his mind had hardly lifted. He stared at the frosted glass on the cooler window, barely able to make out his reflection in it. He got chills all over again. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go; never in the 20 years he had been doing this had he ever felt this way. Even the anxious jitters he’d gotten the first time he’d snatched a child were nothing compared to this. He swung his head toward the far wall, where the clock said 10:50.
Roland furrowed his brow. That late already? Even with the distorted sense of time he’d felt on the road, it hadn’t felt as though he’d been that long driving. Clearly, he’d missed his turn-off, as he wouldn’t still be driving. They should be at his house right now, the girl his newest fleeting possession. Though he didn’t normally believe in such things, he couldn’t help but feel as though he’d blacked out and was now missing a sizeable chunk of time, like those nutjobs you heard on late night television who’d talk about being abducted by aliens.
He shuffled up to the front cash register, putting the half-empty beverage bottle on the counter and digging in his pockets for his wallet. The clerk scanned his purchase and eyed him nervously, his brow furrowing as if in worry. Roland ignored him and produced a five-dollar bill.
“Hey, man, are you all right? You don’t look so good,” the clerk said, taking the fiver and digging in the register for change.
Roland, startled, looked up at the clerk. “Do I?” He said weakly, clutching his beverage like a child would clutch a stuffed bear.
“Yeah, man, you’re real pale. Maybe you should go home and rest awhile.”
Roland nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He said. He turned away and headed for the door, now aware that his heart was pounding, and his feet felt as though they’d been filled with lead.
“Take care!” The clerk said as the sliding glass door closed behind Roland, and he shuffled back to the car.
In the dim light, Roland could see her silhouette in the backseat. Though he couldn’t see it, she knew her gaze had followed him, and she was now staring at him in the darkness. With dread, he climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine, setting his bottled drink in the cupholder next to him. He put on his seatbelt with shaking, clammy hands, the buckle slipping clumsily around the clasp several times. When he’d finally settled into position and pulled the car out of the lot, his hands were shaking.
Why hadn’t she escaped? Roland scowled at the road ahead of him, staring at the white dotted highway line, refusing to glance at the rearview mirror. He’d left her in the car unrestrained and with no instructions to stay put. She could have fled the car at any moment. Why was she still here?
Get rid of her as soon as possible, he told himself. There would be no games, none of the usual acts he would make the other children perform. He’d pull her from the car and slit her throat where she stood, burning the remains, and his bloody clothing with them. It was the only way to be sure.
He stared at her for a minute, watching her suck on her candy. She had bight blue eyes and pale skin. It wasn’t his normal catch (blondes were, after all, rarer), but Roland wasn’t picky. While some had a preferred look, he took all kinds—white, black, dark hair, light hair, fat, thin—but only girls, not boys. Never boys. He wasn’t a queer, after all.
The girl took a bite of the lolly, munching on the glassy pieces with loud, wet crunching sounds. Once it was gone, she hopped off the bench and threw the stick in the garbage, her lips and tongue a bright red. She stepped off the sidewalk and into the street, making sure (Roland was mildly impressed that she knew this) to look both ways before crossing the street. She toddled slowly up the lane, her fingers clutching her t-shirt.
Roland couldn’t believe his luck. He hadn’t planned on taking her now—he typically watched them for awhile before learning their habits and gathering a strategy—but the opportunity presented itself too perfectly to pass up. He threw his cigarette on the ground and crouched beside his car, lying in wait.
What foolish parents they were, letting her wander the parking lot on her own. Roland was surprised; most were more cautious these days. Nobody left their kid in the car anymore, mostly out of fear that they’d be accused of letting them roast to death. And leaving them outside on their own seemed to invite the bad guys, the ones like Roland. Though stranger kidnapping was very rare (kids were more likely to be snatched by a relative, Roland knew), everyone feared it. They feared it the way they feared airplane crashes, even though cars were more dangerous.
He challenged himself, taking them this way. Most kids were snatched on their way to school, or while playing outside. Public parking lots were comparatively safer for kids, or riskier for Roland. Large public spaces with lots of adults around in broad daylight were foolhardy places…but sometimes Roland got lucky.
He lay in wait beside the car, watching, waiting for her to cross his path. He had a very small timeframe. If he didn’t catch her, she would go screaming for an adult, and his cover would be blown. And he was getting sick of having to move around. His heart began to pound in anticipation.
He saw her. He caught a flash of pink t-shirt and blonde hair, and within an instant he was upon her. Her body grew tense underneath his grasp, but to his surprise, she did not wriggle. Nor did she scream—Roland had clamped a hand over her mouth, but there’d been no need. He carried her, like a stiff lawn ornament, to the car, opening the back seat and shoving her inside.
“Mister, are you kidnapping me?” She said as he strapped her into the seat. She said it almost mockingly, as though it were a game.
“Kidnapping? Nah. You’re gonna come with me, your Uncle Roland. We’re gonna play games. You like games?”
The girl did not answer.
“Well, you’re gonna like the games I got. You just be a good girl and be quiet, okay?”
The girl did not answer. Roland shrugged and pulled out of the parking lot, still unable to believe his luck.
He merged into traffic and got on the freeway, tuning the radio to an oldies station, and flipped on the cruise control. Late afternoon was fading into evening, and the sun sank lower in the sky. He had a long drive, and he wanted to be home by nightfall. He adjusted the rearview mirror so that he could see her, sitting in the backseat. He liked to watch their faces as he drove.
She was so quiet. So quiet. It was unusual for his victims, but it had happened before. Most of them would cry, some loudly, some quietly, shrieking sobs and barely-audible sniffles. Others would scream at him from the backseat, telling him that their daddies would save them, that the police would hear about it, and come for them. Still others thought it was a game, that they would drive around awhile and then go home to their families. The few that had made no noise just sat, pale and shaking, refusing to look him in the eye.
This one did not shake. She stared instead, a deep, probing stare that filled Roland’s vision from the rearview mirror, even out of the corners of his eyes. But it wasn’t even the staring—though that was unnerving in and of itself—that fed his sense of growing unease. It was the coldness behind it, the utter lack of emotion. She didn’t appear to blink.
She was not at all afraid. Though this too had happened before—some of them had looked relatively carefree until he brought out the knives—he had the impression that what he was looking at now was not a display of childish naivete, but of knowing; of sheer, cold clarity. She knew what he was, and she watched him like a cat eyeing a mouse.
Roland shook himself a bit, refusing to acknowledge the chill that went up his spine. For the very first time, he adjusted the rearview mirror, no longer able to stand those eyes. His hands had gone cold.
The drive was longer than he thought. The sun appeared to sink faster in the sky, bright yellow rays fading to orange, then red, then violet. But the road stretched onward, a long straight line lengthening in the darkness. Road signs that had appeared far away a mile ago approached slowly, and he never seemed quite able to close the distance. He passed them after what felt like minutes, hours longer than he should have. And still she stared.
The gas station appeared on the right, and he turned into it, turning the wheel more harshly than he intended. The car jerked into the parking lot, and both he and the girl slid a little in response to its momentum. He turned off the car and left it without a word, slamming the door behind him and stumbling into the convenience store.
Bright fluorescent light assaulted him from all sides, and he found he could not move until his eyes had fully adjusted. He wandered aimlessly around, staring at the neat rows of brightly colored labels, of candy and chips housed in plastic packages. He passed all the rows, the millions of rows, until he reached the last aisle, the refrigerated drinks. He opened one and pulled out a bottle, barely reading the label before opening it and throwing his head back, draining half the bottle. He screwed the cap back on and took a few long, deep breaths.
He had to get ahold of himself. The cold liquid he’d forced down his throat had made him realize this much, though the fog in his mind had hardly lifted. He stared at the frosted glass on the cooler window, barely able to make out his reflection in it. He got chills all over again. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go; never in the 20 years he had been doing this had he ever felt this way. Even the anxious jitters he’d gotten the first time he’d snatched a child were nothing compared to this. He swung his head toward the far wall, where the clock said 10:50.
Roland furrowed his brow. That late already? Even with the distorted sense of time he’d felt on the road, it hadn’t felt as though he’d been that long driving. Clearly, he’d missed his turn-off, as he wouldn’t still be driving. They should be at his house right now, the girl his newest fleeting possession. Though he didn’t normally believe in such things, he couldn’t help but feel as though he’d blacked out and was now missing a sizeable chunk of time, like those nutjobs you heard on late night television who’d talk about being abducted by aliens.
He shuffled up to the front cash register, putting the half-empty beverage bottle on the counter and digging in his pockets for his wallet. The clerk scanned his purchase and eyed him nervously, his brow furrowing as if in worry. Roland ignored him and produced a five-dollar bill.
“Hey, man, are you all right? You don’t look so good,” the clerk said, taking the fiver and digging in the register for change.
Roland, startled, looked up at the clerk. “Do I?” He said weakly, clutching his beverage like a child would clutch a stuffed bear.
“Yeah, man, you’re real pale. Maybe you should go home and rest awhile.”
Roland nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He said. He turned away and headed for the door, now aware that his heart was pounding, and his feet felt as though they’d been filled with lead.
“Take care!” The clerk said as the sliding glass door closed behind Roland, and he shuffled back to the car.
In the dim light, Roland could see her silhouette in the backseat. Though he couldn’t see it, she knew her gaze had followed him, and she was now staring at him in the darkness. With dread, he climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine, setting his bottled drink in the cupholder next to him. He put on his seatbelt with shaking, clammy hands, the buckle slipping clumsily around the clasp several times. When he’d finally settled into position and pulled the car out of the lot, his hands were shaking.
Why hadn’t she escaped? Roland scowled at the road ahead of him, staring at the white dotted highway line, refusing to glance at the rearview mirror. He’d left her in the car unrestrained and with no instructions to stay put. She could have fled the car at any moment. Why was she still here?
Get rid of her as soon as possible, he told himself. There would be no games, none of the usual acts he would make the other children perform. He’d pull her from the car and slit her throat where she stood, burning the remains, and his bloody clothing with them. It was the only way to be sure.
Monday, August 8, 2011
The Last Meal
The smell of beef drifted through the kitchen, and even before the buzzer sounded Sharon knew it was done. She put down her nail file—they’d been breaking more easily these days, her nails—and went to the stove. She turned the buzzer off and then the oven, though she knew the dish inside would need a few minutes still to sit. She stirred the contents of the front saucepan and turned the heat to Low, then removed the pot containing the broccoli from the back burner to the cool tile counter. She turned off the heat from the broccoli, and drained the green water into the sink.
She’d need to clean the oven tonight, as she hadn’t cleaned it in awhile and dishes at hotter temperatures were starting to smoke. She’d let it run overnight, and make sure all the dishes were washed and put away—Lisa, her cleaning lady, was coming tomorrow and Sharon wanted her to do more than just wash dishes. She wished that John would come over after Lisa had been in to clean, but due to his busy work schedule, it couldn’t be helped. As it was, he’d asked her to make his favorite beef casserole, one that Sharon had developed herself. He told her he’d pick up some wine on the way, and perhaps a loaf of bread. She’d told him to avoid the bakery on 8th street, as the last time she’d had bread from there, she’d found maggots in it.
Sharon plucked a few loose hairs from her face and flicked them away, watching them drift slowly to the floor. She put the broccoli in a serving bowl and set it on the dining room table, shifting place settings and the occasional dead sowbug aside in order to make room. The sounds of the radio could be heard faintly in the living room, mostly static these days. She’d been asked why she didn’t just turn it off, and her answer was always the same: she found it soothing.
Turning back to the kitchen, she glanced briefly out the window, at the brown, dead grasses and naked, skeletal trees. Sunlight streamed into the kitchen, the same sickly yellow as faded wallpaper in a smoker’s house, or of old black-and-white photographs of long-dead people. Dust swirled lazily in the sunlight, glinting like tiny prisms. Sharon stirred the sauce on the stove, the spoon scraping against the pan with a sound like a tireless wheel rim rolling over an empty gravel road. She turned the burner off and moved the pan to the side, which would allow the sauce to thicken. She reached into the oven and picked up the casserole dish with her bare hands—she knew it would be cool enough to touch.
The gas had shut off a week ago.
Sharon stared into the casserole, a formerly white ceramic pan with chips and brown stains, and a clump of hair fell into it. She flung this, too, to the floor, and set the casserole on the counter.
She walked into the living room to wait.
She sat on the moth-eaten couch and casually, without fuss, began to pull out her teeth.
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