*****
I pulled up to 45 Randall Street in Gainesville at 8:42. Light was fading with the fast dropping sun, now a glow on the horizon. I’d wanted to get there earlier, but I was there now, and that was all that mattered. I threw the transmission into park when I slid to a stop ten feet from the door.
The screen door was closed, but the front door remained open. There was something splattered on the screen and I ignored it as I had all the bad signs along the way.
“Jamie!” I yelled, slamming the door of the truck as I sprinted toward the house. I looked around. Her house was isolated from the neighbors by virtue of her acre lot and a heavy growth of trees all around. The single streetlight on the gravel road just at the entrance of her driveway was just flickering into life as the sun dropped completely. No lights were on in the house, but I could still see okay; the sky still glowed a light blue, but would soon fade to a moonless black.
I felt the .38 in the back of my pants, but I didn’t pull it out. It was Jamie and Jack’s house, for God’s sake. I’d never need it here. I approached the front porch and jumped the steps, landing outside the door. I grabbed the screen door handle and my hand immediately became wet with something cold, slick.
I pulled back suddenly, and rubbed my fingers together. The wetness felt familiar. It was dark inside now, and I couldn’t see through the netting of the screen, so I wiped my hand on my jeans and pulled the door open. As I took two steps into the room my hand fell on the light switch, and I flipped it to the ‘on’ position.
And suddenly my feet were slipping like a goddamned cartoon coyote, as I tried fruitlessly to backpedal. The blood drained from my face, and I felt pale and weak. My left boot abruptly gripped the rough floorboards and I was propelled backward through the door and onto my back, sliding all the way down the two steps into the dirt. I heard screaming, then realized it was me.
I scrambled back to my feet and ran to the truck where I grabbed my cell phone off the dash. I opened it and punched in 911.
It rang several times before the familiar tone sounded, followed by a voice that said, “All circuits are busy. Please try your call again later.”
I threw it back inside my truck and slammed the door. My hand moved to rub the pain where the .38 had jammed into my back when I fell. I removed the gun, and though I knew it was loaded, I flipped it open and checked anyway. With 911 down and out, I was on my own.
My right hand shook as I aimed the revolver toward the light filtering through the blood-spattered screen door. I willed myself to go back inside. I didn’t want to. I wanted to go back in there as much as I wanted to sit down in a sadistic dentist’s chair and have a root canal without anesthesia, but I didn’t have any choice.
I pulled the door open again, felt the wetness, this time all too aware what it really was. It was everywhere. Blood. Jack’s blood. Who else’s? Jesse’s? Trina’s? Where the hell was Jamie, and who did this?
Moving along the wall, I looked down and took in the scene. Jack’s body lay sprawled on the floor, his shirt torn open. His chest had been splayed open, and it was fairly easy to tell what the weapon was, because it was still embedded in his abdomen. The small hand axe’s wooden handle had smeared, bloody handprints on it. What appeared to be small handprints. Not a child’s kind of small.
A woman’s. Jamie’s kind of small.
But it was not the axe in his stomach, nor the gaping hole that should have revealed Jack’s heart but didn’t – now it was just an empty pocket – that drew my attention. It was his head. A serrated steak knife lay beside it, and the dome shaped chunk of the top of Jack’s skull lay just behind the body. It had been sawed off with the knife.
I turned and puked into the sink in the counter behind me. I puked my guts and kept puking until nothing else came out. Then I dry heaved a few times just for good measure. There was nothing left.
I had to see what the prize was. Why cut open his head? Why cut open his chest? I could see the heart was gone – it was just a dark hole. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and slid along the wall back toward the door and bent down, my gun aimed down the dark hallway just in case.
“Holy hell,” I said. “Holy fucking hell.” His head was empty. The brain was gone. I’m no doctor, and I didn’t have to be to know what I was seeing was the nub of the brain stem.
What had Jack done? Had he gotten mixed up in some gambling shit? Borrowed money from the wrong people? He fucking delivered coffee or something! He was about the most benign guy I’d ever met. Who would want to kill him, and where the hell were Jamie and the girls?
I strained to focus, trying to get my heart to stop slamming so hard in my chest. It was still about 80 times faster than normal, but the gun in my hand calmed me a little, and allowed me to take in the rest of the scene.
There were footprints. They looked like women’s shoes. Flats. About Jamie’s size. Tracking through the blood. There were what appeared to be knee prints, too. And hand prints. I didn’t know what to think. Had Jamie come in and found him like this and dropped to her knees beside him? I refused to think about what I’d heard Jamie’s voice say on the phone nearly 6 hours ago now.
I’m so fucking hungry . . .
I needed to find the girls. I backed away from the horror scene splayed out in the entry and moved into the hallway, gun held out. I flipped on the light and the yellow glow washed down the hallway and bathed the living room, chasing away the shadows. Both were empty. I wanted to call the girls, but the last thing I wanted them to do was to run into that room and see what I’d seen.
But they already had, hadn’t they? I’d heard them screaming over the phone line.
“Jamie! Jesse! Trina!” I called. “It’s Uncle Flex! Don’t be afraid. Come on out here if you hear me. I’ll get you out of here!”
Nothing.
I moved down the hallway. There were two bedrooms down there. One just up on the left side. Directly across from that entry there were two double bi-fold doors where the laundry room was. Not much room in there. Washer. Dryer. A large sink. Down at the end there was a door outside, a bathroom on the left, and the other bedroom on the right side. That was the master bedroom.
As I approached the first bedroom door, I heard a low thump. I stopped. There was no wall switch in this room. There was a lamp plugged into an outlet. I’d stayed in this room a lot because while it was the girls’ room, when I’d visit, the girls would share a bed and I’d sleep in the other twin sized setup, my feet hanging off the end of the tiny mattress. The lamp was right between the two beds, but the darkness was complete, and I didn’t want to stumble around, giving up my present location to whoever had done this thing.
And I didn’t bring a damned flashlight.
“Jesse?” I whispered. If she was here, and she was hiding, I didn’t want to frighten her anymore than she already was. “Trina? It’s Uncle Flex. If you’re in here, come to me now. I’m right by the door.”
Something slammed into my legs and I felt it closing around me. I almost staggered back, but caught myself on the doorframe with my free hand. I recognized the feel of little arms around my upper legs.
“Uncle Flex,” came the tiny voice. “Mommy’s . . . scaring me.”
I knelt down and pulled little Trina into my arms. “Shh, baby. I got you now. Is your sister in here with you?”
Her body shuddered in my grip and I pulled her tighter to me. I felt her shaking her head no. “Mommy took her. Mommy’s real sick.” She wouldn’t speak above an airy whisper.
“Close your eyes, sweetheart. I’m taking you outside.”
She pressed her face into my shoulder as I scooped her into my arms and stood, backing out of the room and into the hallway again. I hurried down the hall toward the door, holding her tight to me with one hand, and the gun barrel leading the way like an arrowhead. As I got into the entry where Jack’s body lay sprawle
d and exposed, she sensed it. Trina pressed her face tighter into me. I pushed open the screen door and walked directly to the Suburban. I looked in all directions. If Jamie somehow did do this, it was her I looked for. In my mind it was still impossible. A maniac had done this; had broken in, killed Jack, and taken Jamie and Jesse while Trina hid. The 6-year old was just confused and frightened.
But I had seen the handprints. The footprints. There was something really fucked up and inexplicable going on. I pulled open the truck’s door and deposited Trina gently inside. She held onto my arms as I tried to let her go.
“Baby, I have to find your sister and mama, so you stay –”
“Don’t find mama don’t find mama don’t find mama,” she stammered, hyperventilating, her body shaking.
“Okay, Trina. Okay. If I find her, I won’t bring her here, but I think she’s sick, honey.”
Trina, her hair over her face and her eyes wide, said “She took Jess. She’s gonna eat Jess. She was eating daddy.” Then she erupted into tears.
I stared at her. I didn’t know what to say to her. What she had just said was my greatest fear, and what my crazy, freaked out brain was thinking since I’d seen the horrifying scene in the entry and connected that with what I’d heard on the phone, but I wasn’t in that mindset then. I was not programmed to believe that human beings – human beings in my family that I loved – could be out there killing other human beings that I loved and . . . and eating them.
“Stay here,” I told her. And when I close the door, I want you to lock it and lay down on the floor over there. And stay down. Understand?”
She nodded. I kissed her little cheek, rubbed the back of her head with my hand, and pulled away. “On the floor now.” She obeyed, and I pushed down the lock and closed the door until I heard it latch.
Then I headed out into the moonless night, looking for my sister and my niece. And not really wanting to find them.
CHAPTER TWO