The Sapphire Express

The Sapphire Express

J. Max Cromwell

Copyright © 2015 J. Max Cromwell

All rights reserved.

I don’t have a killer’s code or any higher calling. I am not a vigilante or a hero who was sent here to serve humanity by taking some unwanted trash to the landfill. I have no cape, and I have no halo. I am a late-blooming sociopath, born from pain and cruel tragedy, kept alive by the never-ending stream of man’s filth and inexplicable obsession to fulfill his wicked needs. I loathe the ones who hurt the innocent and unleash my wrath upon the tainted souls who smile their fake smiles, the ones who pretend to be decent when there is only deceit and lies running in their toxic veins. I am an angry suburban man, and I despise impunity and punish the corrupt souls who use their power and money to hurt the vulnerable. I am here to pull the untouchable rats from their gilded nests with my burning net, and I will make them pa
y
—
pay hard, pay good. I have a shiny knife that cuts bone in half, and I have a creepy van. I am a middle-class Antichrist from the forgotten valleys of hell, and I welcome you to my secret world.

Yours truly,

The Little Suburban Man Who Could

Prologue

I am standing on a deserted beach near Saint Helena Shoal, holding a 12-gauge Remington pump-action shotgun and waiting for the arrival of a mass murderer, a true monster. They say that it will be the greatest storm that has ever made landfall in the continental United States—or anywhere in the world, for that matter. It will carry death and misery in its filthy clouds and wipe out thousands of us little busy bees living in our human nests with our happy families and stolen dreams.

The storm is a product of human madness, an unholy union of humanity’s failure to make peace and nature’s amazing, unstoppable fury. It is a radioactive nomad, born from shortsightedness and greed, fed by stubbornness and false hope, ruled by no one, and conquered by nothing. It is the poisoned offspring of an enraged Taranis, and it will bring black rain.

For some, like yours truly, the arrival of that monster will be a welcome change—an escape, an unexpected, convenient favor. Man’s troubles and tribulations are somewhat reduced when he is resting in an oblong box, kindly offering his cadaver to the starving carrion beetles that know how to party hard, party dark.

The nights are full of terror, and my fellow compatriots are panicking, going mad. They shiver with fear like a crippled December swan in the last unfrozen forest pond. The poor souls haven’t fully embraced the idea that something so terrifying and destructive can bring peace to the crazies, to the ones with nothing to lose. They scurry into their SUVs and minivans with their high-definition TVs and shiny espresso machines, and they scream, they worry, and they cry their salty tears and expose their selfish fears to anyone willing to look at them, have pity on them. They blame everything and anything, and they say that it is so unfair that they now have to run and hide and leave it all behind. Then they scratch their faces with their dirty nails until they bleed and become infected and vile—still completely oblivious to the fact that they are accomplices in it all.

All the cities along the East Coast are empty, and there is menace riding in the heavy ocean air. One could say that things are grim when you turn on your local radio station and the announcer is crying, and there is only static on TV. It is clear that that something is coming, something unprecedented—something from hell.

People are running to safety with panic hissing in their veins like an angry serpent because they don’t want to die, and I sort of understand that. They don’t want their babies to die, and I understand that, too. But to me, none of that makes any difference. Not anymore. Not after I decided to meet that bastard of a storm head on and fly with it like a lost parrot in a desperate need of direction, any direction, even to doom, preferably to doom.

It wasn’t easy to arrive at that decision, but once it was made, I was delighted to realize that it came with some unexpected benefits. I am now 100 percent free of all fear and stress that most living creatures reluctantly host in their bodies and tired minds. I fear no sickness, and I fear no death. I fear no man, and I fear no god. I simply don’t give a damn about anything or anybody, and that attitude has made my fears and stresses homeless. They tested me a little before they packed up, of course, but as soon as they understood that I wasn’t a false prophet, they gave up and left. Scumbags didn’t even say good-bye.

The Grim Reaper seems to know about my decision, too, since I am still here even if I have done some truly mindless things and intentionally put myself in situations where most people would wet their jeans. I have driven faster than a Pacific cyclone on a dirty freeway, totally fearless of the colossal trucks that I passed on the debris-filled shoulder, eyes closed. I laughed at that 250-pound beast covered in prison tattoos who screamed at me that I should apologize for my behavior. I didn’t apologize. I just looked at him with my adder’s eyes and said that I am the Antichrist and looking forward to my time in my silver casket, buried next to his casket. He left me alone and shook his head. Wise man. I left him alone, too, because I had a slight hangover and was somewhat reluctant to execute my master plan prematurely.

I have learned that Mr. Death avoids a man who wants him the most. I guess I’m not interesting to him anymore, and that’s why he no longer pays any attention to me. He will take me, yes, but only because he has to. The poor thing is so disappointed and depressed now because I have forced his highness to unwillingly admit that he doesn’t have the ultimate control over his subjects. It hates me because I ruined his only fun by taking charge of my own death. I broke his precious merry-go-round, and now he is throwing things at me like an enraged toddler in full meltdown mode.

I am a dangerous man. Not too many people who know me would doubt that. I don’t look particularly intimidating or disturbed, but the ungodly look in my bloodshot eyeballs tells to stay the hell away. I have no children, no family, no real friends, no dog, no mouse, no house. I have nothing to win and nothing to lose. I cannot be threatened, and the adorable laws of man amuse me. I have weapons that I’m not afraid to use, and I have a lot of them. I have the power to take any scumbag with me to the gates of hell if I so choose. That kind of power wipes the smirk off the face of even the toughest son of a bitch. We all possess that power, but only the selected few are crazy enough to harness it and exploit its full potential. I am one of the selected ones—I am a full-time monster.

1

Happiness?

I didn’t choose to be the man I have become; I want you to know that. I never imagined in my maddest dreams that I would find myself in a situation where only death could destroy the walls of my Hadean prison and set me free. I just wanted to be a regular family man and live a decent, comfortable life without any major interruptions, tragedies, or disruptive bursts of wealth or fortune. I wanted to celebrate my everyday victories with my family and cry my man’s tears when I failed to get what I desired. I wanted to high-five my wife when I got a promotion and sulk when she was too tired to have sex with me. My humble plan was to gradually improve my life, climb higher, and enjoy every step on the ladder in an appreciative and composed manner. I simply wanted to cherish what I had—inhale it, taste it, touch it, and live it. I never drooled over the ambition-killing numbness of inherited wealth or chased fame or silly stardom that so often was just a sad byproduct of mass delusion and human n
aï
ve
té
. I never wanted to risk my happiness and let a mere illusion steal its hard-earned place.

I was content with my life, and I watched with benevolent amusement how people around me tried so desperately to reach the next social class. The middle class wanted to break through the holy gates of the upper middle class, and the upper middle class wanted to be in the upper class. The upper class wanted to become rich, and the rich wanted to become superrich. When life at the highest level became too boring, the superrich wanted to become gods and reach the status of immortals. It was a never-ending game where disappointment and addiction were the only guaranteed winners. However, some of the players snatched a short respite to enjoy the new-car smell and watch a quick movie on a TV that was ten inches wider than the old one, but then they were on the move again.

I had no desire to be part of that race. I wanted to embrace the convenience of ordinary and fall asleep fast every night. I wanted to be invisible and enjoy a good cup of coffee in total peace. I loved privacy more than anything and treasured the priceless fact that no madman would ever have a reason to think about my family or me. All I ever wanted was stability and lasting happiness.

And I had that. For a painfully short period, I had that. I was a joyful family man, and my wonderful wife, Eden, understood me better than any other person in the whole world. My beautiful daughter, Annalise, woke up every morning in her pink room with a smile on her little face that could have melted glaciers and taken down rugged mountains. I had a purpose in life, and I had security. I was a successful man.

Our days started with sunshine and genuine laughter, and Eden made us bacon and eggs while I read the morning paper in my flannel robe and brown plaid slippers. We talked about the rain and the pain, and we worried about money and bills. We loved hard and lived smart. We even accepted that the banana peel was always waiting for us somewhere there, but we never let it ruin our fun. The beauty of simplicity was present in our lives, and I could feel the virtue of modesty hovering over our happy household. It soothed us and minimized our worries while still providing our family with everything we needed.

I was also satisfied with my professional life. I had a good job as a math teacher at the local high school, and I walked with light, venerable steps, knowing that I had a rare skill that I could pass on to the younger generation. I felt like I was an important cog in the shiny gear of human progress, and I believed that my teachings would live on forever in the lives of the descendants of my students. Yet I sometimes had to lie and embellish to conceal my incompetence from the inquisitive ones, but it was just part of the job—a part of any job, I suppose.

Eden was a librarian at the city library, and she looked like a librarian. Her hair was dark and a little too short, and she wore wire-rimmed glasses that were as thick as the bottom of a forty-ounce Colt 45 bottle. She was a creature of habit, and every morning at first light, she put on her brown cotton trousers and a beige cashmere blouse that her mother had given her for her thirtieth birthday and got ready for the new day. She looked modest in her librarian’s outfit, maybe a little musty, too—like an old popular library book, a classic. The kind that comes alive when you wipe off the dust and read it with care.

Eden had great legs, and her ample bosom was inviting in its innocence and seemingly impenetrable decency. Her humble looks concealed a voracious sexual beast that used to jump on me like a creature from hell, or maybe heaven. Even after fifteen long years of marriage, that voluptuous animal was still breathing somewhere in its deep cave, but I had to bring all the goodies with me if I wanted to lure it out and ride it.

We had a humble home, but it was our dream home—a proud result of years of saving, patience, and a deeply ingrained middle-class belief that owning your own walls was the main purpose in life. It was a white colonial, and two majestic oaks guarded its inviting entrance like two indefatigable sentries that never dared to leave their lonesome posts. Our house was one of the main sources of my happiness, and every time I opened the door, I felt like I was the luckiest man in the world.

I loved our little neighborhood in the quiet suburbs, and our well-maintained home fit perfectly in the peaceful landscape that was made of realized dreams, earned happiness, and carefully hidden misery. Eden had worked hard on the backyard, and the little garden she had started during the hazy days of her first and last pregnancy was filled with yellow roses and white funeral lilies. Magical scents of paradise lingered in the summer air, and even the bees and butterflies were reluctant to leave that slice of suburban heaven behind. Eden had even planted a beautiful Hokidachi bonsai in the far corner of the garden, but the poor thing was murdered after a couple of weeks of a sad struggle that she so closely watched through the living room window with her worrisome eyes and ever-growing belly. Our little Japanese friend put up a good fight, but the merciless beetles slowly consumed the tiny tree and callously distributed its remains on our beautiful white carpet. They looked happy doing it, too, and the whole episode was a terrifying demonstration of nature’s cruel indifference.

Apart from the horrific beetle attack, I was a blessed man, and success had, for some peculiar reason, found me from the bag of mediocrity and drunken lethargy. My life looked exactly like the life that my own father had always dreamed of having, and my eager heart was filled with satisfaction and pride. He had always talked about the importance of building equity, getting a steady paycheck, and staying married. This holy trinity promised peace, prosperity, and happiness, and I was proud that I had been able to find that hard-to-reach place and break the family chain, constructed before me, of dreams and broken promises alone.

I was so goddamn successful that sometimes I felt the wind of superiority touching my thinning hair gently, and I indulged in the fact that I was the only one in my family who had been able to resist the call of cheap alcohol and smoky poker tables. I had seen too many times how an achievable dream gradually disappeared when weak hands kept grabbing the bottle of whiskey and rolling the dirty chip on the green felt of delusion and tears. My eyes had witnessed too many dreams being slain without a true, rational reason, and I had always been adamant not to let my own ambitions join them in death.

Yet I didn’t know why dreams died so easily in my family, and that puzzled me greatly. Maybe it was just too hard to be patient and optimistic. Maybe it wasn’t worthwhile to climb all the way to the good stuff when some stuff was already available at the base camp. Maybe it was the fear of failure that murdered all those dreams and sucked the ambition out of the insecure veins. Maybe it was the fact that the men who failed in my family were often treated worse than the ones who didn’t even try. They were ridiculed in a jocular but heartless manner, and the two-faced cowards who had secretly prayed for their failure consoled them with their hollow words. Maybe seeing one of their own fall was, after all—in their honest hearts of hearts—a better option than seeing them succeed and gradually escape to a world they weren’t invited to, where they would be seen as unworthy. Maybe it was a great relief to see them come back with their tails between their bruised legs because it meant that the weak and spiritless weren’t going to be abandoned, after all.

But I had always been different than the other men in my family. I was never afraid of failure or interested in the opinions of my relatives. I was fully focused on my own life and future, and maybe that was the reason I was able to escape the call of malt liquor and shrug at the foolish belief that a fleeting victory at a poker table was worth more than a million losses. In my opinion, the whole thing was a total no-brainer because failure wasn’t even possible when the starting point was the mother of all failures. The only failure I was afraid of was the failure to even try.

But even if I had won, I still felt uneasy when the bitter moon looked at me with accusing eyes, and the birds of the night screamed in the forest darkness. I knew that I wasn’t safe even if I had managed to find my way out of the flimsy box of dreamers and the insecure. I was still weak, and I often failed to listen to the sound of reason that was echoing loudly in my head. I let the devil and his wretched minions whisper wickedness into my sordid ears and convince me that I wasn’t good enough, respected enough, strong enough, smart enough, or man enough. I opened the door to the lunacy of jealousy, and I forgot my happiness and health and let madness step in and bring its friends along for a ride, too. I listened to the devil, and I goddamn listened, and he spoke, he spoke, and he whispered, and he schemed, and he schemed, and I soon became so goddamn envious of my neighbor’s life and his gorgeous house that my face turned red, and the forces of apprehension made me pull my hair hard, pull it like it was poisoning my scalp with murderer’s cyanide.

When I thought about my neighbor and all his toys, I felt like I was losing a race and falling behind. The man seemed to have no worries at all, and everything in his life looked so disgustingly perfect and enviable that I wanted to stab myself in the liver and spit out my stained lungs and die right there in my grimy front yard. The man was the embodiment of success and rare brilliance, the shining sword of perfection, and I wanted to be like him and live in his beautiful body. I wanted to become that miracle neighbor and bury my sad corpse under a dying pine tree somewhere far away from the many shortcomings of my math teacher’s boring life.

That perfection had a name, too. It was Sandy Clark. He was a muscular, handsome man, like a fearless bandit from the hidden plateaus of the misty Andes. His skin was soft and radiant, and when I looked at that flawless, debonair creature that had success and great fortune living in his perfectly formed spine, I felt ugly and worthless. Sandy Clark was a graceful mountain eagle, and I was a dirty farm chicken with a broken egg hanging from my dying feathers. Even his name sounded so much better than my name, and I knew that I could never compete with that man.

That superior creature was also much more successful than I was, and the lucky bastard even had enough money to hire a handyman, a landscaper, and a pool boy to take care of his beautiful house. His lawn was always green and healthy, and his pool sparkled like millions of precious stones—like diamonds that I could only see through my bedroom window but never touch with my undeserving fingers.

Mr. Clark’s wife, Mrs. Lucy Clark, was a perfect specimen, too, a true goddess from the tranquil highlands of paradise. She was so, so pretty, and the stylish woman always had a nice tan and a curious sparkle in her emerald eyes. Her smile was warm and sexy, and she looked clean and fresh like a white cotton sheet drying in the gentle summer wind. She was petite, but her breasts were large and firm and utterly impossible to be ignored by any heterosexual man with rat’s blood running in his veins. She liked to wear those tiny pink shorts when she left the house with her white tennis racket and that fancy designer bag that had a picture of a yellow rooster on it. It was an expensive accessory, and I was a little worried that Eden would want to get her own rooster, too.

The local health club, Annabelle’s Dream, was Lucy’s favorite place to murder some of her long homemaker’s hours, and she knew that she needed to look good for Sandy and be ready for him when he came back from work and maybe wanted to have intercourse with her before brushing his teeth with his blue toothbrush. She was an intelligent woman and well aware of the scary fact all that equality, mutual respect, and financial security that the minister had so generously promised her in the stone cathedral existed only as long as Sandy wanted them to exist.

Sandy was indeed a powerful man in Lucy’s eyes—the sacred breadwinner, the little domestic God almighty himself who could destroy her future and throw her in the empty streets whenever he wanted to. That’s why she worked so hard in the gym and shaved and smiled and pretended and faked and moaned, and so goddamn religiously wore those stupid support bras all night long even if they hurt like hell and pinched the delicate skin under her armpits, keeping her awake, forcing her to listen to the disgusting sound of that broken chainsaw that lived in the mouth of a man who had stolen her freedom and trapped her inside a life she now desperately wanted to escape.

Lucy was a good wife, and sometimes when she looked at Sandy, when he was eating his favorite barbequed chicken and had forgotten to wipe all the sauce off his face, she saw that young, exciting man again whom she had met a long time ago in the dimly lit high school gymnasium—the one who had fought so hard for her and defended her, but who now only tolerated her, took her for granted, snapped at her, ignored her, treated her like a piece of rotting garbage. At that very moment, when the warm brown sauce started dripping from his aging cheeks, she pitied the man she had once adored and felt some distant love in her lonely heart for that peculiar, meaty creature that surely didn’t taste better with age. But when Sandy was on top of her later that night, she closed her eyes and dreamed of that yummy wine she kept in her private cabinet behind the closet door. She wanted to drink more and more of it and drift into that place where Luca from the health club was waiting for her in his fire-red Saab, true love sparkling in his cobalt eyes, and his potent, tight body ready to fulfill her every desire. She wouldn’t even need that colorless and odorless jelly she had secretly purchased from the pharmacy because Luca’s tender, but, oh, so passionate love would lubricate her and pleasure her every nook and cranny and take her to that rare orgasmic heaven where Sandy’s little shrimp and his clumsy hands could never take her. She wanted Luca so badly, oh, so badly, because he was a glorious blue whale, and Sandy was just a dreary shrew. That glorious whale was intelligent and kind, and it even understood that belittling words weren’t just words; they were the sound of love dying.