Devil's Playground (16 page)

“I do not fear you,” he screeched.

Again, lightning flashed, farther away, followed by a soft rumble as if God had retreated from the battle. He waited. Another flash, weaker, more distant.

He pulled the window closed, wiped the rain from his face with a towel, and returned to his bunk, pulling the blanket around him. He considered returning to his meditation, to his Prince, to his moment of consummation, but knew it would be fruitless. Too late. The damage was done; the moment lost, forever.

*

A blinding flash of lightning and a cymbal crash of thunder dropped Walter Limpke from his Technicolor dream into a nightmare. A nightmare far beyond his most visceral fears.

He had feared he was losing his mind, but now he was certain that he had. No other explanation was possible. The wildly colored world of the past two nights, his blood smeared clothes and hands, his visions of Miriam Hargrove paled when compared to the scene before him.

He recoiled, stepping back, and tripped over the buckled carpet. He fell, landing on his butt with a heavy thud.

Where was he? He scanned the dark room. An aluminum framed window to his right, a flimsy aluminum door, standing open, to his left, and a stained and gritty yellow carpet beneath him. Ahead on his right were a small sink and refrigerator and wooden overhead cabinets. A mobile home? He was in a mobile home. Whose? Where? Why?

He felt moisture beneath his left hand, soaking through the seat of his pants. The rain pounded the steps outside the open door. At first, he thought the wet carpet must be rain soaked, but when he looked at his hand, even in the darkness, he could see the dark stains of blood.

Fear slipped into him like a finely honed knife.

A bolt of lightning, its simultaneous clap of thunder as palpable as it was audible, flitted along the ground outside the door, illuminating the interior. The body, which hung by its ankles before him, danced in the strobing light as if it were an inverted marionette controlled by some monstrous hand.

He scrambled backwards, propelling himself with the heels of his boots, until he collided with a table that sat against the wall. His heart matched the hammering of the rain, both echoing in his head. Sweat poured from every pore and a bitter, sour acid burned his throat.

He pulled himself to his feet, clutching the table for support. A wave of dizziness and nausea washed over him and his stomach ground into a knot.

Again, lightning rippled across the sky, bathing the room with its flickering light. The body repeated its macabre dance.

He approached cautiously, half expecting the corpse to spring to life and lunge at him. The blood soaked carpet made squishing noises with each step.

He was close to the body, very close. He could see the throat had been sliced, exposing the cartilage of the windpipe, and the chest had been ripped open. A dark cavity stared at him. Where was the heart? He remembered enough high school biology to know that the heart should be where the gaping wound was.

Dear, God, let this be a dream.

Another flash of lightning painted the corpse. Recognition struck him like a left hook. It was Roberto Sanchez, a friend and customer for over ten years.

He back peddled, slipping on the blood soaked carpet, falling to the floor. Blood oozed through his clothes, slicking his skin. Panic squeezed all reason from him. He kicked and squirmed and wallowed in a futile attempt to escape the sticky liquid that seemed to pull him downward as if trying to drown him.

He grasped the handle of a drawer, then another, and another, scrambling upward. His hand reached the counter top, clawing, clutching, searching for something to anchor to. His fingers brushed against something, which tumbled off the counter, struck him in the face, and dropped into his lap.

“Oh, God,” he screamed and pushed and kicked the heart away from him, sending it tumbling across the floor. He collapsed, shaking uncontrollably.

Oh, God, kill me now. I can’t...I can’t take anymore.

He leaned against the cabinets and sobbed, a deep visceral sob that possessed no end. His heart leaped against his chest as if trying to escape.

Finally, he struggled to his feet, too exhausted, too beaten to feel anything, except a black, cold emptiness. He turned from the body, the blood, and the madness and headed for the door.

Another streak of lightning cracked across the sky. He caught a glimpse of something shiny, metallic on the floor near the door. A knife. He picked it up and stepped into the rain.

The storm driven wind cut through his clothing. He spread his arms and spun around and around, letting the coldness assault him. He dropped to his knees and turned his gaze skyward.

“Dear, God, tell me, what to do? Am I going crazy?”

He turned the knife over and over in his hand, examining it. Images careened around inside his head as if looking for an escape route. Finding none, they tumbled and swirled until they blended into a vortex of color.

From the chaos, structure emerged. Images of blood, of the faces of Miriam Hargrove and Roberto Sanchez, and of the knife. The knife slashed through the air, then through flesh. Someone held the knife and furiously struck at Miriam and Roberto. The knife wielder hacked and slashed and stabbed over and over, then turned. Walter Limpke stared into his own face.

“No!” he screamed into the wind.

The cold rain pelted him, pasting his clothes to his shivering body. With a bowed head, he rocked back and forth on his knees, shaking his head in a futile attempt to dislodge the images from his brain.

When he looked up into the rain streaked darkness, his beautiful wife Margo appeared before him, her gentle smile offering respite, her open arms welcoming. He reached out, crawling toward her, wanting to hold her tightly and lay his head on her comforting bosom. But she retreated, her face twisting into a look of horror, an accusatory finger stabbing at him. He turned away, unable to face her visage.

“Margo. Forgive me,” he said softly.

Clutching the knife in his left hand, he slammed it into his gut. The finely honed, eight-inch curved steel blade met little resistance as its full length penetrated his belly. A searing pain exploded through him, causing a sharp intake of breath and a tangle of second thoughts.

Yet, as severe as the pain was, to Walter, living, facing Margo, facing his own actions would be worse. He yanked the blade free and thrust it again and again and again, until he collapsed face down on the muddy ground.

Maria Hidalgo was running late, as usual. She hurriedly whipped up a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast for her husband and two boys, only toast and coffee for herself. She applied the minimal amount of make-up that allowed her to leave the privacy of home, slipped on slacks and a sweater, and snatched her raincoat from the closet. She kissed her husband goodbye as he headed off to work, then zipped the boys into their rain gear and herded them into the car.

After dropping the children at school, she drove into town. The windshield wipers struggled against the drizzle, which tugged the steel gray clouds downward, muting the colors of everything. Buildings, cars, people, even the traffic signals gave up their hues to the mist.

Despite being late, she needed her morning Starbucks’ fix and luckily someone backed from a choice parking space directly in front of the busy coffee shop. She slid her Cadillac into the spot and, not bothering with her umbrella, jumped from the car and darted inside.

The smell of fresh coffee and pastries greeted her.

She ordered a large cafe latte and waited impatiently while Tasha Fallow, a teenage girl with green and fuchsia hair and a nose ring, prepared it. Tasha was the daughter of Bob and Sherry Fallow. Maria couldn’t understand how they let their daughter paint and punch holes in her body that way and hoped the fad would be dead long before her boys reached that rebellious age.

She pushed up the sleeve of her jacket and glanced at her watch, 8:40. Her father’s appointment with Doctor Roberts was at 9:15. She just might make it. That is, if the rain hadn’t washed out the road to his trailer.

She and her husband Raul had tried for years to persuade the old man to live with them, but he stubbornly refused, preferring to “live out here where people leave you alone.” Roberto Sanchez’s mobile home sat along a dirt road five miles north of town. He occupied himself with his woodworking and his cactus and rose gardens and drove his old Chevy pick-up into town only when necessary.

Maria and Raul frequently called or drove by to check on him or took him to Millie’s for dinner or dropped his grandsons off for the day on some weekends. They worried about him daily, which she was sure aggravated Roberto, but also pleased him.

He had never been what you would gregarious, but as the years passed he became increasingly cantankerous and less tolerant of intrusions on his privacy. “If anybody wants to talk to me, they know where to find me,” he would say. However, he did brighten whenever his grandsons came to visit and seemed to anticipate their visits by planning all sorts of activities for them. He taught them about his cactus garden and his roses. He introduced them to woodworking and together they made a variety of toys and other gadgets. They collected rocks and caught lizards. They hiked around the desert in search of unusual insects and plants, which the boys could name with astonishing accuracy. After a day with Roberto, they always slept soundly.

Maria had been pleased when her father was selected for jury duty three weeks ago. Not that she wanted him to be involved in a case as gruesome as Garrett’s, but she hoped that having to come into town and interact with others on a daily basis would open his eyes to just how isolated he had become.

She ducked into her car, being careful not to spill the hot coffee, backed from the parking space, and headed out of town. After turning off the paved highway, she found the rutted dirt road sloppy, but passable.

When she topped the rise in the road and saw the mobile home, she knew something was wrong, terribly wrong. The body, laying face down in the mud caused a sharp intake of breath and her heart stuttered as she pulled to a stop twenty yards from the trailer.

“Oh, God. Papa, no.”

She hurled herself from the car, tossing aside the coffee, and raced toward the body. Heart attack? Stroke? All the fears she kept locked in that corner of her mind where she hid such things came pouring out.

Was he dead or merely ill? How long had he been lying there in the rain and cold? Why wasn’t she there to help him when he needed her? Why didn’t she make him come live with her?

As she approached the body, these fears evaporated, replaced by new ones. Immediately, she knew the body was not that of her father. But, who?

She knelt in the mud, grasped the shoulder nearest her, and shook the man. No response. She rolled the man to his side, inhaling with a sharp squeak when she saw blood. A knife, which protruded from his stomach, slid from its fleshy sheath and plopped into the mud, followed by an ooze of thick blood that swirled and folded into the mud, creating a psychedelic pattern.

A scream arose but became wedged somewhere in her throat, swelling, expanding. She couldn’t dislodge it, so it fell silent, leaving only a faint whimper in its wake.

The man groaned, causing her to recoil and slip backwards on the seat of her pants. She scrambled to her feet, her head swiveling, searching. Where was her father?

She stared at the trailer’s open door. She struggled to her feet, never ungluing her gaze from the doorway, but was afraid to approach, afraid not to. She stood transfixed, frozen by fear.

Her first impulse was to run back to her car and flee, go find help. But, what if Papa is in there, injured, dying?

She took a step, then another, then two more. She called out. “Papa?” The word came out weakly, raspy with fear. Two more steps. “Papa?” she repeated, louder, in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own. Two steps and the door gaped before her.

She cautiously climbed the steps and peered into the mobile home. At first, nothing appeared out of place. Dark stains in the carpet caught her attention, causing the fear that wound around her gut to crescendo. She leaned through the door and looked toward the rear of the trailer.

Roberto Sanchez’s pale, bloodless body hung from the ceiling, his mouth distorted in a hideous grin of death.

The impact of the scene propelled her backwards, her foot slipping on the steps. She slammed against the ground with such force the air escaped from her lungs in a single wheezing bolus. Gasping, she quickly rose to her hands and knees and frantically clawed the mud, pulling herself toward her car, feeling as if someone was clutching at her ankles, attempting to pull her back into the trailer. The faster she dug at the mud, the slower she seemed to move, which only intensified her panic. Her heart pitched and yawed and swelled to the point of bursting.

Finally she reached the car, hugging its bumper as a drowning man would cling to a raft. She pressed her cheek against the cool chrome and sobbed and cried and finally screamed at the black clouds that hid the sun from view.

“Nooo!”

The man lying on the ground stirred and moaned once again. She crawled toward him and for the first time recognized Walter Limpke. Confusion, fear, panic choked her, but she managed to squeak out, “Are you OK?”

Walter offered no response, did not seem to know she was there.

She must get help. She half-ran, half-staggered back to her car, flung open the door, twisted the ignition key to the middle position, and snatched her cell phone from its cradle. She dialed 911 and waited through six rings, an eternity, until someone answered.

“Please. Help me.”

“What’s the nature of your problem?”

“My father! He’s dead. And Walter is hurt. Badly. Please, hurry.”

“Relax. Take a couple of breaths. Now, tell me where you are.”

“Rattlesnake Road. About a half mile off the highway. Roberto Sanchez’s home.”

“OK. I’ll have an ambulance and the Sheriff there in a hot minute.”