The Dead Parade (24 page)

87

Switch drove the highway alone, watching the gray skies turn purple and the purple skies turn black. He spent most of his journey listening to punk rock and classic metal. Today’s music of choice included
The Ramones, Judas Priest, Dio, S.N.F.U
and
NOFX
. It was music he knew well and played often. Half the time he was smiling and singing and in a wonderful mood, which was common for Switch. His friends all agreed that more often than not he was a great guy to be around.

The other evening Switch downloaded a handful of
Blondie
tracks that were recorded live at CBGB’s, back in the day. They sounded like shit but were cool to hear. When he was done listening to
Dio
––the
Holy Diver
album, which in his opinion was the best thing Ronnie James Dio ever recorded––he fired up
Blondie
and enjoyed it for a long while before he clicked off his iPod and took pleasure in the silence.

As Switch closed in on his destination, he stopped for coffee at King’s Diner. Once he was inside he found himself chatting with the girl that was working behind the counter and ordering himself a great big slice of pie. The pie was blueberry, and it was delicious. The girl’s name was Jennifer Boyle. She was cute and friendly and had been working at the diner for seven months. She had a great personality, a pretty face, and knew as much or more about music than Switch did. Unfortunately for Jennifer, her life was about to take an unexpected turn for the worse and her time on this earth was nearly finished. In the days ahead a woman named Stephenie Paige would be arrested for killing her with an axe. The police would find Jennifer sitting on the restaurant’s floor in a pool of blood, leaning against the warm stove with her legs spread apart and her pink underwear exposed. Her left arm would not be found until later, severed from her body and laying beneath the counter, a yard and a half away. Her pretty face would be sallow and terror-stricken. All of this, not five feet from the place Switch was enjoying his pie and flirting like crazy.

Switch left the diner, wiggling his butt like a fool and blowing Jennifer a kiss from the palm of his hand. Jennifer smiled and giggled and blew one back, even though she felt embarrassed to do so. Her co-workers wouldn’t understand. They thought she was halfway to being an airhead.

Most guys couldn’t pull off a silly move like that if their lives depended on it. But for Switch, moves like that came easy. He was charming, and charm is something that should never be underestimated. Charm has the ability to turn tacky into brilliant. It can make the unsightly beautiful. It was the reason Jennifer paid little attention to her other customers, the reason she smiled at Switch endlessly and slipped her phone number across the countertop without his asking. The number would end up being useless, of course. She’d be hacked into pieces and scraped off the floor before he had a chance to use it.

Returning to his car, Switch moved slowly, dragging his feet.

Meeting up with Elmer was something he wanted to do less and less as time moved ahead. He didn’t know how to approach the evening. In fact, he didn’t even want to go there
.
But he did go. And if you asked him why he wouldn’t be able to give you a straight answer. Switch was like that. He did things his instincts hated and often times felt that he had no choice.

Elmer’s pissed off, he thought. No doubt about that. But killing a man, well, that’s something that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

He decided––at some point after his second coffee was gone, his pie had been devoured, and his conversation with Jennifer Boyle was running thin––that he would make Elmer see things a different way. Show the man logic, talk him down and cool him off––for a day, maybe two. Then if Elmer still wanted to murder a man, well then, Switch would listen to Elmer’s reasoning, and maybe, just maybe…

“
No,” Switch said out loud. He wondered what he was thinking.

Elmer was a friend, sure he was; he was a good friend, an old friend, a friend that Switch respected––but he would take no part in the killing. Killing was wrong.

Elmer’s plan had to be stopped.

88

Elmer looked at the blood on his hands and at the trodden face of the dead woman. She was lying in the sand near the edge of her family’s property line. Her right arm was slanted upward and her left arm was folded onto itself near the wrist, showing bone in two places. But Elmer wasn’t enjoying his visuals; he was more concerned with a different slice of his acuity: his sense of hearing.

Elmer, all ears now, listened for the intruder that had become aware of his presence. Somebody was near; he was sure of it.

On the far side of the cottage he heard a voice, possibly two. He assumed that one voice belonged to James, which it did. He didn’t rule out the idea that James was alone, but Elmer heard more than a voice or two. He heard a door slam and a scuffle. Stuff like that didn’t happen without reason. No sir. Stuff like that happened when somebody was trying to get somewhere fast. Odds were, James came outside quickly wanting to know who was screaming and why.

Slowly, carefully, Elmer pulled himself off of Helga’s body, trying not to make a noise. Wind blew dirt in his face. He put his hands down and shifted his weight; his fingers sank into the sand, which had turned cold. And beneath the top layer, the earth was colder still. Holding his breath, he started moving. First he shifted his right hand and right leg. Then he shifted his left hand and left leg. Each time it did this he could hear his jeans rubbing against the sand. He assumed that his knees were leaving a good-sized trail. He didn’t care about the trail––it was dark now; the trail meant nothing. The evening sky had blossomed into the night, and the moon had shown itself to be small and powerless and shaped like a sickle. And that was before the clouds had erased it completely. No, he didn’t care about the trail; it was the sound that was bothering him.

As Elmer moved his pants seemed unacceptably loud. He figured the entire beach could hear him. And people were nosey. That was one thing Elmer knew for sure. People were irrefutably nosey.

Hell, he thought. Just look around. Two dead bodies on the beach don’t lie. If the old couple weren’t so fucking nosey––why, they’d still be alive.

After crawling thirty feet, Elmer allowed himself to breath a little. He looked over his shoulder. A half-mile away or so—it was hard to tell for sure—a campfire was lighting up the beach. It looked like a group of teenagers were getting drunk together, maybe four or five of them. One was playing the guitar and singing a song that sounded like Bob Dylan. But that couldn’t be right, could it? Did teenagers like Bob Dylan? Somehow he doubted it. He wondered if any of the teens had heard Helga screaming. If they did, they didn’t seem to care. More importantly, they didn’t look as if they were planning on acting on it.

Elmer pushed on, somewhat confident now, making more noise then before. He spotted a man and a woman walking along the shoreline holding hands. The couple had a dog, which ran in circles alongside them. Elmer stood up and began walking towards the people, thinking: kill them. But why? And how? He didn’t have a knife or a gun. He also didn’t have a reason. These people weren’t looking for trouble. They weren’t suspicious of him in any way. They were just another twosome walking along the beach. Just walking, he thought––a husband and wife perhaps. They were probably in love. Married. Kids. Families. But he wanted to kill them. And they were closer now, twenty feet away.

Nineteen.

Eighteen.

Seventeen.

And he still wanted to kill them.

The dog ran away from the couple, towards him. It barked once, then twice. Then, as the dog bounced and leapt and wagged its tail, Elmer considered the way that he must look after killing the old couple. Like a lunatic, he thought. His face and shirt, covered in blood, his knuckles sandy and raw; his hair matted to one side. It was the aftermath of combat.

He mumbled, “Where the fuck is Switch? Shouldn’t he be here by now?”

Fifteen.

The dog was at his heels, still barking.

Whroof. Whroof. Whroof.

“
Hello!” The lady on the beach said, nodding her head and smiling.

Then the man waved.

Twelve.

Elmer raised a hand as his shoe clipped a sandy wave in the beach. He ran his tongue across the grime of his teeth and could still taste the salty aftertaste of Franco in his mouth.

Ten.

“
Hello,” Elmer said with a grin. “Nice night for a stroll, isn’t it?”

Nine.

Eight.

The couple didn’t say another word. Their faces were blank and expressionless.

89

The man in the car was old and tired and hung-over and wanted no part of Mia’s bullshit. He hit the gas, flipped Mia the bird and drove around her, heading for the bar. Fortunately for Mia, another car was right behind the first. It stopped without hesitating and Mia jumped into the back seat.

“
What are you––?”

“
DRIVE!” Mia shouted. “SOMETHING’S CHASING ME!”

The driver’s mouth popped open and he hit the gas instinctively. The car shot ahead with tires squealing. Mia spun around and looked through the back window as the area shrunk away. She was breathing heavy and panting.

It’s over now, she thought. It’s over.

Then she thought, isn’t that what James said? Something’s chasing me?

She felt her skin crawl.

“
Who’s chasing you?” The man behind the wheel asked. He was confused, but not upset. His name was Alex; he was a nice guy. He was thirty-something, good looking. He worked with a Web Development company and was quite gifted. He was also single, talked like a teenager, and couldn’t help noticing the curves of Mia’s body. She looked voluptuous; he liked that. Most thirty-something teenagers did. Then again, Alex liked most women that gave him the time of day and he took what he could get more often than he’d like to admit.

“
I don’t know,” Mia said. “Just go! Go!”

“
But where am I taking you? I don’t know what you want!”

“
Get away from here! Turn right and keep going!”

“
Do you like, mind telling me what’s going on? I can drive you somewhere, as long as it’s like, close and you’re not an asshole, but I wanna know why I’m doing it, ya know? That’s just the way I am.”

Mia gazed out the window. It was amazing how normal everything seemed. The houses were all sitting in a neat little row, cars were either parked or driving, traffic was smooth and people were going about their business. She pulled her eyes from the scenery and leaned on the front half of the seat. Her heart was racing in her chest.

She said, “Do you know what happened today?”

“
I sure do,” Alex said. “Everything’s been happening today. It’s been nuts and crackers around here. Or are ya, like, talking about what happened inside that building you came running out of? Because if you are, then, yeah. I know about that too. I live there. I’ve lived there for six years, or is it seven? I don’t know. Six or seven. I live on the fifth floor. It’s a pretty nice place if you ask me. It’s fancy. I can see half the town from my balcony, and that’s alright by me.”

“
You live there, huh? So do I.”

Alex snatched a better look at Mia. Even in her frazzled state she was gorgeous, which went a long way with Alex. He loved beautiful women. If only he could find one to love him back.

He said, “Really? You live there? Do you live on the fifth?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Oh wow. Jesus dude, what are the odds of that? Do you know Debra? I live next to her!”

“
No, I don’t.”

“
Oh, you should meet her. She’s great. She’s a cute girl, dark hair, smoker, likes to dress like a slut.” Alex’s eyes widened as he stuck his knuckle in his mouth, looking embarrassed. He fumbled his words, trying to undo the statement. “Well, come on, like, you know what I mean. She wears loose tops and stuff. Half the time you can see her… well, you know. You can see her breasts.”

Mia rolled her eyes. She didn’t care about Alex’s careless tongue or the girl he was talking about. She didn’t care about anything. She said, “Up until a couple weeks of ago my time was divided between my job and my boyfriend. Now they’re both gone and I have a dog.”

“
What happened?”

“
I don’t want to talk about it. Not now.”

“
I thought you looked familiar,” Alex said. He was lying, of course. He was just trying to impress her, land a date. Score a wife.

“
Oh?”

“
Yeah, after a while you get to know the people in the building. Some people I see all the time. I don’t see you all the time, but I recognize you.”

“
I’m the girl that escaped from the killer today. My face has been all over the news. Maybe that’s why.”

“
You are?” Alex was shocked. “Why aren’t you at the police station?”

“
I was there for three hours.”

“
That’s wild. I heard that bad stuff was happening today. So, like, who’s chasing you? Is it the killer? Is he like, in the building again?”

Mia shrugged and rubbed a hand across her face. For the first time since she jumped into the car she thought about her parents. She had forgotten somehow. During her getaway all she could think was: RUN. And that’s what happened. She ran. But now a back-catalog of sorrow and horror was re-surfacing and it hurt like hell.