*This is from my "bad novel" that I started writing earlier this year.
Olivia still wore her scrubs. Her words became difficult to find. Tear ran down her cheek. The detective reached for a box of tissues and offered them to her. She took one, and wiped the moisture from her eyes. She sat in his office, replaying the morning in her head as she told him. Morning, as usual. Get up for work. Two cups of coffee, breakfast, read the news, but as she almost got into her car, she remembered to check the mail.
“Did anything go off to remind you to check the mail?” The detective had asked, opening a file and flipping through pages, marking things as she recited the evening.
“Yes.” She told him “The flag was up.”
“You weren’t trying to mail anything, so you became curious?”
“That’s correct. I… opened it… and…” She broke off in tears. Once her eyes had dried with the tissue, “I only just met him, and we just had fun…”
“Mister Thomas was a known drug dealer from South Redskin. Relations to gang activity, prior arrests, history of violence. Can’t say him ending up dead is a surprise… but what is surprising is that someone wrote a note… Tell me about it.’
“I ran over a dog once. It happened a long time ago.”
“Whoever wrote that note knows you did this.”
“I don't see how that’s possible…”
The detective, Arty Welch, drank his coffee, and set down the papers.
“Do you have any enemies, miss Santiago?”
“No.” She answered quickly.
“Jealous ex boyfriends? Someone you might have mentioned this story to?”
“No. I never told anyone.”
“You say you were just having fun… Where did you meet mister Thomas?”
“A club.’
“A place in the Undergrowth by chance?”
“No. I never go down there.”
“I see. Of course not. The investigation will remain open. Thank you for cooperating. If anything comes up, call me.” He handed her a card; Arty Welch. ACPD, Homicide.
Olivia put it in her wallet. She left the police department feeling cold. The white tiles reflected her troubled expression. She didn’t blink, nor feel like she could. She crossed her arms down the length of the hallway to conceal her jittery fingers. From outside, she could hear police sirens start up and speed away into the city. Her tamed hair had become frizzy and tangled. She green scrubs rustled together. All voices and faces of people she passed became distant, unattached. Her own reflection doubted that she was a real person. Why, she wondered, has God waited so long to punish me? On the back of her neck a skinny asian girl had tattooed a cross. Around her neck she wore two things. A crucifix, and her mom’s wedding ring. Feeling sorry isn’t enough, she thought as she left the building and entered the rainy streets. White overcast, faint rain drops. A dry day for Angel City. Statues of crying angels stood atop the pd building. Also in front of the capitol building, and subways. An inside joke. It rains so much here because the Angels cry. Olivia opened an umbrella. The noise of city, and flowing movement of humans concealed her. Yet she couldn’t lose the feeling of being followed. Every person in her way, dark eyes accused with suspicion. Every ounce of her felt drained. She hailed a cab, which stopped for her almost right away. She had a pretty face. Getting free drinks, getting a cab, never been a problem she had. Once inside, she almost fell asleep. Caffeine stopped working. The cabbie asked where to, and at once she decided not to go home. Yellow tape still wound around her mailbox. Arty had told patrolman to keep an eye out around her house, but she couldn’t be around windows knowing that someone could see through. She couldn’t go to her boyfriend’s place because his wife was home.
She counted her blessings.
At her sister's house, she sat solemnly. The images still fresh in her mind. The flag on her mailbox, a warning. The bulging eyes, as if asking her Why Me. Lucila hugged her sister, and made warm drinks for them both to enjoy. Besides that, no hospitality. She sat across from Olivia with her arms crossed, and head tilted away so that she didn’t need to look at her sister. Olivia kept her head in the steaming cup of earl grey in her hands. The same reflection looked back at her.
“I feel so sorry, Lucila.”
“Too late for that now. Mamá’s been dead for four years.”
“If I could take it back…”
“If you want forgiveness, you better go to a priest.”
Olivia had to tighten her face muscles to keep from bursting into tears. At least Lucila would talk to her. The other siblings wouldn’t return her calls or invite her family gatherings. They shared one bond, though they seldom spoke about it. Thier father had died ten years prior, but he had touchy hands for his little girls. Mom did nothing about it. Olivia walked around with is, accepting it as normal. Lucila too.
“I would do anything to take it back. That’s why this is happening to me… I fucked up.”
“There’s nothing you can do now. What’s done is done. Stay as long as you want, but you need to go home at some point. Can’t have you squatting here. Louise is coming over later.”
Olivia left in her sister’s jacket. Alone, she traveled by subway back to her neighborhood. She went through cart to cart, skipping empty seats hoping that the next cart held no people. Beggars clanked cups on rails. Business men and bearded men in khaki shorts separated themselves from their environment with tablets that reflected in the windows. A homeless man slept peacefully. A small crew of teenage boys holding skateboards talked about “good pussy”. Elderly black women with rolls of fat squatting over to the next seat. Carts smelled of marijuana and urine. Dark stains and trash littered the metal flooring. Nothing new. When she found a cart with only one other person, she took her seat in the far corner. The stranger seemed to be ill. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He wore a black hoodie and the hood covered his face. Only strands of long, white hair, and a pointed, hatchet chin stuck from the hood. His hands were folded, and he seemed to be whispering into them. The rattling of the tracks concealed his noise. Olivia put headphones into her ears. She raised her phone to her lap, and scrolled through songs. When she put her phone down, she noticed the stranger gazing directing at her. Pale features, blue eyes, a narrow forehead, thin lips. Her latin-pop- dance music drowned out all sounds, but the stranger didn’t need words to communicate. He rubbed his hands together. Flakes of dry skin peeled from them. She thought maybe a coincidence, but he wouldn’t look away. He just stared with his thin lips closed. Olivia reached into her purse, and took hold of pepper spray.
The stranger took both his hands, and mimed a steering wheel. Olivia stood up and left the cart. His eyes never left her. She felt them pressed against her back. A spasm shot up her spine and tickled her ears. As the door shut behind her she turned her head to see the stranger stand up and come towards her. The subway stopped, and she flowed with the outpour of humans.
Rain poured on Olivia as she stood before her house. A small place among other small places. The curtains drawn, the doors locked. Her car parked where she had left it. Olivia didn’t want to enter the house. She felt like a ghost waited inside for her. A monster that loomed over her, with pale eyes and frothing saliva spilling from its jaws. A dog chained to a past.
A dog barked in the distance.
Inside of her own home, she locked the front door, and hurried to her her bedroom, leaving a trail of dripping water across the hardwood. Dishes stacked the sink. Clothes cluttered the floor before her washing machine. Dust gathered in the corners of the hall.
Olivia thought of exactly what she should have said to Lucila while undressing. She meant to pay back every dime. She had been doing catering at a hotel at the time, and found herself between paychecks. New owners had taken over however, and things got mixed up. She quit and without receiving a regular paycheck she needed money more than ever. Olivia began to put on dry clothes. It’s not my fault that she died. Those last few checks weren’t going to help her anyhow. Why can’t they understand that? She got over it by cursing her siblings. She would go to work, like normal. Wipe asses, like normal. Pretend that she woke up and took a walk instead of finding a severed head, and being taken to the police department.
Her boss wanted to hear about it. Eagerly, the RN leaned on her elbows, more eager to find out how a head found its way into her mailbox than the detective was. The RN rarely paid Olivia this must interest. Over so many low paying jobs Oliva had become used to a boss disrespecting her. The opposite sent chills down her spine. The RN could be a pain in the ass, but Olivia had worked at the nursing home longer than any other place in Angel City.
She was put in the Alzheimer's unit for the evening. Hard work often kept her mind from troubling her. Whatever torments dug into her brain, getting old people to bed, dressing them, feeding them, rolling them over, provided therapeutic relief. Lean muscle toughened her arms and shoulders. She administered pain killers, taking a few pills from each dose. By the end of the day, she would have a prescription of opiates to enjoy after work.
Before she could take off she had one last resident to administer drugs to. The co-worker behind her took a breath in agreement. He had been struck before by the ornery old man. All the asswipers had been. She dropped her head, but sucked up the grief, and opened the door. Felix Wallace sat at a desk. His blind eyes unfocused, sinking behind sagging eyelids. 94 years old, and no matter how many times they put him to nap, he wouldn’t die. The Alzheimer’s made him worse. Never happy, always pissed, and not knowing why. Olivia had never seen his family visit. He claimed to have no family. The Indians killed them he insisted. They would try to reason, “Mr. Wallace, you aren't that old, remember?” as if he were a child. Those damn Indians took them away in their helicopters and left me to die here. “Ok, John Wayne. Open up for your medicine…”
Olivia had no patience with him. The absurd things he’d say about his youth just infuriated her. Take me there! He would demand. Don’t put me to bed, I need to go there again! No one knew what he talked about. The bottom of a cave. So deep and dark…. The indians worship it. They threw my family inside and danced until devils came out to dance with them. We need to get them out… and when Olivia would try to get him to settle down he’d fling a fist. The old man could swing too. She fell backwards as Todd, the only male CPN in the old folk home, restrained him from hitting her again. A bruise stained her cheek for the rest of the week.
Olivia knocked,and drew his attention.
“Who’s there?” He said as she flipped on the lights.
“It’s time for your medicine.”
“I don’t need any fucking medicine.”
“Yes you do. It helps you sleep.”
“Sleep…. No, no sleep. I need to stay awake. I need to find the cave.”
“There is no cave, Felix. Take your medicine.”
“I know there’s a cave. Just like I know that one of you steal my pills.” He pointed at the wall.
“No one steals from you” Olivia shivered.
“I saw it in the cave. Long ago, but some dame in there took my pills, and everyone’s pills…. And people are mad at her. The chasm shows him this.”
They stayed until the old man took his medicine.
“Crazy old man, huh? Says the damnest things.” Todd Said to Olivia.
Oliva at the end of the night wanted a shower. Her skin peeled from the leather seats. Her hair frizzed out of control. Dark bags dropped beneath her eyes. She checked her phone, and saw that her boyfriend hadn’t sent her any messages. The last text about his wife still hung on her screen. She bit her lip, and texted him a heart just to get it off her screen. The pills she counted in her pocket enough for now. She could sell them. She even got some oxycontin, and that could bring in good money, but she preferred to indulge herself. She took one before she started her car up. Nothing at first, but the sensation of the world melting, and her sinking in with it fell onto her halfway home. The fatigue left her back, her legs, her chest. She felt she had heard the funniest joke ever uttered. Not the laughing kind of joke, the kind of joke that is so funny that it creates a sensation of joy. The street lights became soft orbs reflecting streaks of light on the wet cement. The patter of rain become a song. The Dark clouds became curtains for privacy.
Olivia couldn’t wait to get home. She wanted her bed, and wanted to call her boyfriend. He lived in the Overgrowth. He paid for her bills and insurance payments. Had thick calves. She liked that. She also liked that he bought her flowers, clothes, food, a new laptop, a decadent purse, and flattering of all jewelry. Olivia wore a gold bracelet, otherwise kept the necklaces and rings in a box under her bed. The initials A.W inscribed in her bracelet puzzled her. She figured it must be a brand. She didn’t know if jewelry manufacturers used brands, but she knew nothing about that industry other than Africa and engagement ring commercials. She felt bad at first about him having a wife, but the gold helped her get over it. Besides, she thought, he promised he would divorce her and marry me. The most ideal white wedding dress imagined itself over her body. Tight around her abdomen, fluttering at the back, a veil and white gloves. Her siblings would come and think she’s the enchanting creature on earth. If they didn’t come, it wouldn’t matter. Her husband would have his ferrari waiting outside, and a plane to Milan or some pretentious hell hole to spend their honeymoon.
As she pulled into her driveway, she thought again of the world’s funniest joke because a woman in an Armani coat stood on her porch with arms crossed. A sedan parked on the curb. The front door to her home wide open. Where are the cops when you need them? She thought. The woman wore a hat that covered her scalp. Pale, sharp features exposed an aged woman. She didn’t wait for Olivia to get out of the car. Once the vehicle pulled in, the strange woman walked into the rain and began beating the window with her umbrella. Throwing jewels at her too. Then she noticed the clothes given to her by her boyfriend in the wet yard, her box of jewels open. The woman’s hat fell off, revealing a bald, vieny scalp. Olivia got out. She could’ve called the cops, but she too much of her father in her. While the strange woman got down to pick up her hat, Olivia excited and put her hands on her hips. The gold bracelet dangling on her wrist.
“Who the hell are you?”
“He gave you my bracelet too?” The woman exclaimed, her voice breaking.
“This belongs to me!”
“A.W! It’s mine. Look at it, everything has A.W on it.”
Olivia knew already, but she looked anyway.
“You’re a crazy bitch. Get off my property.”
“It’s all mine! That cheating bastard! What did he tell you? That we were divorcing and he’d marry your jaina ass? Not in a million years!
“I don't know who you are-”
“Then explain this” The woman produced her boyfriend phone. Picture after picture of her in the dresses he “bought” for her. Messages, all the dirty messages with deep detail, all in place. “That’s you!”
“How did…”
“He told me. I have cancer and he’s…. With you!”
Olivia didn’t want to move. The detective words, crazy ex-boyfriends? Damn, she felt stupid. The wife had her umbrella in hand, and hate ran down her face. IT twisted and contorted from a woman in her late forties to a starving cougar with dripping jaws. One blow from the umbrella bent the iron bar as Olivia dropped into a stream of rain water streaming from her gutters. Splashes of rain spat on her. The wife kicked her once, twice, three times, that stomped on her head. Olivia couldn’t move. Her pills fell out of her pockets and dissolved in the rain. The oxycontin relieved her of pain, but took her strength away. The blows inspired a funny feeling. She remembered her dad’s beatings. He hit his daughters the same way he hit his sons. So hard that they remember it. She almost missed it.
While laying in the rain under the heels of an angry woman, her eyes fell to the street. Neighbors with their lights out, and curtains drawn. Rivers of brown street water being swallowed by moaning gutters. A steaming manhole. A giant iron penny in the middle of the street. Oliva thought it must be the blows to her head and maybe the drugs, but the manhole seeme to lift from the street just about two inches, and a twin pair of yellow eyes peaked. Can’t be real, she thought, but then the manhole cover slid to the street, revealing pointy ears, a furry face, and a flat snout of a rottweiler, but it's great teeth pushed its mouth open. No dog could have teeth so massive, so sharp. It’s paws pulled it up, revealing a black body bigger than any dog she had seen. The wolves at a trip to the zoo years ago, dwarfed by the size of this beast. The hound’s legs rippled with muscle. Its neck thick as a tree trunk. It snarl sounded like a furnace burning. It’s eyes flashed like fire flies with each breath. The beast revved like a truck and launched from the street towards the women. It took only three seconds for it to latch onto the wife's bicep and tear it from her arm. She screamed and tried to pull away but the hound took of her side, and sunk its great teeth into the soft fat. She collapsed to the ground as the dog tore the flesh free and then bit her bald head. The expensive, elegantly woven fabrics tore into cotton and flooded into the street. Olivia got to her knees, crawling backwards to the house, unable to take her sight from scene before her. The hound grew bigger as blood filled its mouth, big as a buffalo. It let go her the wife, strips of flesh hanging from its jaws. It sniffed her body, walking around her while she moaned and begged. The hound took hold of her ankle, and began to drag her away. Relief and terror struck Olivia as the woman's body shifted from her driveway, down to the street, and down the sewer with the hound. The manhole cover then lifted itself up, and fell back into its place. The rain fell harder. Blood and flesh washed away done into the gutters. Olivia stood up , and entered her home. Every inch of her dripped. She wiped away some clothing, wiped water from her forehead to find it bleeding. Her nose bled too. The wife had hit her so many times that she couldn’t count where she had been struck.
The chasm shows him this.
The crazy old man came to her mind as she dug through her dirty clothes. A white t shirt she wore when jogging, and a pair of pants. She didn’t know it, but at that very moment the old man’s heart stopped beating while he slept. His last words heard by no one. Todd the ass wiper came in because his call light kept going off. Inside, he found the old man on the floor, with one leg still on the mattress and the covers in his hands. His eyes frozen in pain and terror.
Olivia felt a pain in her heart that circulated through her chest, arms, hips, legs. Pressure arose in her head is if a pair of giant fingers pinched it and pulled her up. The walls melted, the floor rolled like waves. From the next room, the sound of glass shattering caught her attention, but the sound of a bowling ball going down the lane brought tears to hear eyes. She leaned against the wall of her darkened house, and slid down as the rolling became closer. Rays of noxious pale yellow city light poured through the window, leaving a square of light on the floor near her feet. She listened as the rolling became louder, and louder. Then something touched her bare foot. Soft, cold, right on her toe. She covered her face, let her toes explore it. She peeked through her fingers, and bit her hand to keep from screaming.
Her boyfriends head lay at her feet. Eyes wide and bloodshot. A roll of paper crammed into his mouth. She reached for it, pulling it from his open jaw, an uncrumpling the paper.
Follow me, it read.
The head began to roll away out the door. Olivia grabbed a raincoat, wearing nothing underneath, followed. It took her outside. It rolled through puddles. Dogs barked at it. It turned corners. The neighborhood vanished behind her as it took her deeper into the city. She climbed a fence. Crawled through a tunnel. The lights of the Overgrowth cast a halo of milky yellow over the dark clouds of night. The towers stood higher than any building in Angel City. The head went towards it, but she knew it wouldn’t take her there. Beneath the overpasses and bridges that lead to the Overgrowth, lay the dark bottoms, the Undergrowth. She found her barefeet walking through a tight alley where the cement had eroded into mud and sharp jagged pieces. Rain poured down gutters. Plywood covered the windows. Bums gathered around burning barrels. Grizzled men and women slept in dark corners along buildings. Olivia couldn’t tell who slept, and who had died. Garbage cluttered the alleys. The whole area stunk. The head rolled between rails of a gate. Oliva hopped over it. It took her to an empty lot. The foundation of burned brick remained, but no structure stood. A mouth opened before her. Another alley. This one ordained in ivy that stretched and scaled the walls of the decomposing buildings that compressed it. The buildings seemed to grow and flex as she entered the mouth of the alley. Garbage clogged the drain in the center. Steam arose. Rain water gleamed with gold against the lone bulb of light hanging from a hanging rafter pressed against the walls of both buildings. Beneath it stood someone dressed like a man from the 17th century. A doublet, felt hat, buckles on his shoes, white garters at his knees, and a cloak that fluttered. All black as the hound sitting at his side. The head rolled through the garbage water and the man healed it with his shoe. Yellow flashes lit up beneath his hat, and faded. Oliva came nearer. She heard his voice cut through the cold air like a vent discharging warm air. Fog drifted from the dark over his mouth. The dog’s tongue hung out as it panted with satisfaction.
“Come from the rain. It’s dry where I stand.”
Beneath the hanging rafter overhead, water stopped plummeting on her. The hooded figure did not twitch its view from her. His hands politely folded in front of him.
“Who are you?” She asked.
“I have become the Necromancer. I am the one who watches. I am the one who knows the secrets.”
“Why have you done this?”
“I had no motivation to inspire the misses of your lover to confront you.”
“You killed them?”
“Yes.”
“Why me?”
“Because the Chasm calls for you.”
“I can’t… I’m afraid.”
“You’re such a beautiful creature… you would do anything to stay alive, yes?”
She nodded.
“The chasm knows this. It shall show you, if you accept it’s call, that fear is formless. The weakness, the sickness that makes one fearful, will die. Your senses will elevate. You will become something far beyond beautiful… beyond life.”
“Show me. If it's made you so powerful, than show me.”
She saw a smile as he turned his head reaching into his pocket. He produced a small calico kitten. It mewed for its mother as he held it like a baby, petting it softly with long, bone white fingers, archaic designs tattooed onto his hands, showing the critter to Olivia. Then he took it by the neck and twisted. A snap crackle through the alley. He held the kitten by the scruff to show that it had died.
“Watch.” He said putting the kitten on the wet ground. He produced a talisman from his cloak and lay it over the kitten. With one word that she heard, but didn’t catch, the talisman began to bleed. The kitten twitched, then got to its feet. The Necromancer scooped the critter up and held it affectionately once more.
“I don’t believe it…” olivia thought of the puppy she ran over, her mother dying under dirty sheets.
“It’s real. Just come with me-” He held out his hand, and she almost took it but a bolt cut through the alley and ruined the metronome of rainfall. The smell of gunsmoke permeated as the Necromancer dropped to the ground. The hound barked, but as its master’s heart stopped the ebony canine froze like a statue. Its fur fell away, leaving a sculpture of ash. From the shadows approached detective Arty Welch holding the .32 revolver that had fired the shots. He kicked the hound statue and it fell apart into a pile of ash and bone.
“What have you done?” Oliva asked him as he spun over the body of the Necromancer. The cold, white face of an old man with yellow eyes watched the sky.
Arty turned towards her, and handed her five hundred dollar bills.
“Go away. Far away. Never tell anyone about this. Ever. Understand?”
She nodded, and hurried away. Welch kept watching the alley until her footsteps faded behind the fall of rain. The city moaned. A hunched back vagrant crossed by behind Arty but kept walking. A body in an alley didn’t shock anyone in Angel City. Especially not the Vagrants. Arty got down besides the body, and rifled through the pockets. Cat fur, tokens and lint. He opened his cloak, and went along the doublet until he felt a solid underneath. He tore it open and found the inner pocket. He reached in, and retracted a leather book filled with rotting paper. He flipped through it. All hand drawn, and hand written. Ink drawings of monsters eating virgins, paragraph after paragraph of archaic speech. Latin markings, Gothic markings, even Sanskrit and Chinese. Stains big and small of many colors tainted the pages over the years. PApers had been shoved in place. Then he found the drawing of a cavern, and notes written by the NEcromancer. He read them. Details, details. How to perform a spell. How to raise the dead. How to contact the Chasm. How to reveal what hid behind the veil. Arty put the book in his back pocket, and loaded the necromancers body over his shoulder, carried it to his car, and stuffed him in the trunk. Forms of vagrants wandered in the fog.
He dumped the corpse into the river, and made his way to a barrel in an alleyway. The bums had left, but he could smell their booze. The fire smelled like paper and rubber. Arty took the book back out. The warmth from the fire felt good against his skin. The book felt heavy. Like a cinderblock. He waited for it to drop from his hand into the fire. A knot caught his throat. He couldn’t drop it in. He heard a voice. His little brothers from all those years ago, find me, Arthur. Take the book and find me…
“Billy, is that really you?” Arty asked the night.
“I’m so cold...soooo coooold. Let's go home.”
“No.” Arthur said, his lunch pail in hand as they went along the railroad tracks. “We have to find out who took mrs. Gilbert’s pocket watch.”
“But I’m tired. I want to go home and watch cartoons.”
“Those cartoons are foolish.” ARthur had a star wars shirt on. Han Solo, his favorite character, perched up against a backdrop of space with his weapon drawn. “If we find that watch, we’re going to be heroes.”
Billy had superman pajamas on. It was the last day they would spend together. The next day Billy would disappear.
“I didn’t know, Billy…” Arty said to the fire. “If I had known… how could I have known?”
Don’t burn the book… find me, please!”
Arty put the book back into his pocket, and went back to his car. A tear ran down his cheek.
