Frankenstorm: Deranged (3 page)

Latrice turned to stone as she watched the old man rush toward her shrieking and aiming the gun between his hands directly at her. She was paralyzed because, in that moment, she knew she was going to die. He was going to start firing that gun and she would feel the bullets tear into her one at a time and then she’d be dead.

But he kept coming and he didn’t fire the gun.

He got closer and closer, mouth open as he screamed at her, but he didn’t fire the gun.

Latrice dropped her cell phone because she forgot she was holding it, then reached her left hand out toward the sink piled high with dirty dishes and closed it on the first thing she touched—something hard and cold, long and round, a handle of some kind—but when she tried to lift it, there was resistance, so she pulled hard, then gave it a strong jerk, and the pile of dishes and pots and pans collapsed in a loud clatter, some of them falling to the floor and scattering. A plate shattered on the tiles.

She threw the pot at the man as hard as she could and gasped loudly with surprise when it struck him on the forehead. That sent his feet flying upward and the gun flying from his hands and tumbling into the air.

Latrice watched all of this in slack-jawed amazement, as if it were a movie in which she was deeply involved, a movie that just kept surprising her.

He hit the floor ass first, but he never stopped moving. His arms and legs flailed, a giant spider on its back, as the gun slowly spun on its upward journey just a few feet from her, then hung suspended in the air for a moment before starting back down again.

Latrice snapped out of that weird, dreamlike state and started grabbing for the gun. Her hands clapped together on empty air once, twice, and on her third try, her hand hit the gun and sent it flying away from her and toward Rosie’s motionless form. Her attention was diverted by a sudden change in movement on the floor from the old man.

He was getting up, scrambling to his feet, chattering to himself. He broke into a clumsy run toward her, kicking the dishes and cups and saucers that had fallen onto the floor from the sink. Halfway across the kitchen, he bent at the waist so his head was level with her abdomen.

“Motherfucker,” Latrice said behind clenched teeth as she tried to kick him, only to find that she was no better at kicking than she was at grabbing.

His head butted her in the stomach and emptied her lungs as she went down on her ass with a loud grunt. Pain exploded from her coccyx and she cried out, but she didn’t stop moving, either. She knew he would go for that gun and she couldn’t let that happen. Fortunately, pain only made her angry. None of the people who knew Latrice well wanted to be around her when she was in pain, no matter how much they loved her, and she knew that and understood. Pain made her pissed off at the world.

“Mother
fucker
!” she said loudly and firmly as she got to her knees.

The old man, still looking like a spider somehow, was on hands and knees now, crawling frantically toward the gun on the floor. It had landed in the corner by the neglected dishwasher, beneath a row of drawers, in the triangle of space between the corner and Rosie, who still lay unconscious where Latrice had put her.

Latrice grabbed the lip of the counter with her left hand and got to her feet, then reached into the dirty dishes with her right hand and groped for a different kind of handle this time.

When he lunged for the gun, the old man landed on top of Rosie, and she stirred. He grabbed the gun from beneath the overhanging edge of the cabinet and drawers and backed away on hands and knees, moving quickly but clumsily.

Rosie screamed. The piercing sound went into Latrice’s ears like a couple of hatpins as she closed her hand on a thick, heavy, wooden handle and drew it from the mess.

Rosie kicked and thrashed her arms as she continued to scream and the old man cried out in surprise at her sudden outburst. He raised the gun and fired it into Rosie’s confused and terrified face.

The scream was cut short and Rosie went limp.

The old man went even crazier as he stood and angrily kicked Rosie’s lifeless body, his foot moving so fast it was nothing but a blur as he growled gibberish. For a moment, Latrice was mesmerized. He seemed to be punishing the young woman he’d just killed, enraged and wailing, kicking and kicking.

Then, still bent at the waist, he started to turn and aim the gun at Latrice.

She’d pulled from the sink a large butcher knife caked with old food. She drew her right arm back quickly, then rushed toward the old man and swung it upward, the blade projecting just above the thumb and forefinger of her closed fist. As she was swinging upward, he was turning toward her, chin jutting as he screamed at her again.

The blade met the soft underside of his jaw, pierced the flesh and stabbed upward into his mouth.

Before he was aware of what had happened to him, he raised the gun and fired at Latrice.

It clicked impotently.

Not wanting to lose her weapon, she jerked the knife out of the old man as he started to move backwards, away from her, pushed by the impact of the blade under his chin. As she withdrew the knife, his eyes bulged as he made a gurgling sound. Blood spewed from his mouth and spattered Latrice’s face, warm and clinging. She gasped and stumbled backwards so that they were suddenly falling away from each other.

Giff staggered into the room with blood running down his left arm, a large gun in his right hand. He was the color of flour and looked drained of energy. He saw Latrice first, then turned to his right and saw his father lying faceup on the floor, legs kicking as his hands slapped at his chin in a clumsy attempt to stop the blood that was spilling freely from his wound.

“Jesus Christ, Daddy!” Giff shouted as he rushed toward the old man, dropping to one knee. “What happened? Jesus, what the fuck hap—”

Then he saw Rosie. He stood up slowly as he stared down at her, then staggered toward her, croaking, “Who did this?” Standing over her, his head turned toward Latrice. “
Who did this?
” he shouted.

She pointed at the old man writhing on the floor. “He was gonna do the same to me, I swear. I had to defend myself.”

Eyes bulging now, Giff returned to his father’s side and bent down close, putting the barrel of his gun to the old man’s forehead.

“’Zat why you came back, you miserable old fuck?” he said. “To kill my woman? ’Zat why you disappeared for a couple weeks? Huh? So you could plan this, huh, you cocksucker?”

The old man rolled and kicked and continued to make desperate gargling sounds, spitting blood into the air, into Giff’s face.

Giff fired. The old man stopped moving and made no more sounds.

Giff stood and began to pace the length of the kitchen, breathing heavily and fast, muttering to himself incomprehensibly and occasionally making high whining sounds.

A child cried somewhere in the house.

Latrice watched Giff pace, still clutching the knife tightly in her right fist, now wet with the old man’s blood. She felt a shudder move through her and her head began to spin. She grabbed the edge of the counter with her left hand, then leaned against it as the room grew steadily darker.

Still holding the edge of the counter, she squatted down and lowered her head as much as she could. She didn’t want to lose consciousness, not here, not now, but all the blood in the room was getting to her. She took a couple of deep breaths and gulped a few times as she began to feel steady again.

When Latrice finally stood, slowly and cautiously, she found that Giff was still pacing and muttering.

“I-I’m sorry,” she said.

He stopped and looked at her, surprised, as if he’d forgotten she was there.

“Really, I’m sorry,” she said again. The room became blurry and Latrice realized she was crying.

Giff looked at her with a confused frown. “Sorry? You kiddin’? I hated that fucker.
Hated
him!”

“Um . . . is everybody else okay? What about the kuh-kids?”

The child was still crying somewhere.

“Kids? Oh, shit. Yeah.” He immediately turned and hurried out of the kitchen, leaving Latrice there with the dead.

In the living room, he shouted, “Goddammit, Jada, will you wake the fuck up and help with the kids? Hey, Tojo! Go over to Miguel’s trailer and tell him and Mia to come in here and give us a hand.
Go!
”

Latrice looked around her for a moment, then down at her hands, the right one covered with blood as it held the knife. She opened her fist and let the knife fall to the floor, where the blade sang against the tiles. She had to clean up and get that blood off of her before she puked. She could
smell
it. She had to find a bathroom and wash in some scalding hot water and get clean. Clean. Everything would be better once she got clean.

But she couldn’t move. She leaned against the counter and just stood there, looking at nothing in particular, thinking nothing in particular, just staring, unable to take a single step. She stayed that way for what felt like a long time.

Then the small window over the sink flashed a faint red and blue, and a single, loud
whoop
came from the siren of a police car.

In the living room, Giff shouted, “What the
fuck
? Who called the fuckin’
cops
?”

Latrice looked down at her bloody hand, shaking now. With blue and red flashing in her peripheral vision, she felt cold with the fear that her life was over.

Andy did not think he would ever stop hating himself for getting Donny into this.

How could he be so stupid? Why would he believe, without hesitation, that Ram von Pohle was now a great guy, a real humanitarian, a family man? Only because he wanted him to be.

Andy got the impression that Ram had reached the end of his ability to pretend to be somebody he wasn’t. Maybe it was his wife’s infidelity that had set it off, or maybe something else, but whatever it was, it had cut the ribbon on the old Ram, the Ram that Andy knew and despised and feared. That Ram was back and open for business, and he was not fucking around. No more Mr. Fake Nice Guy. He was back and worse than ever, back and in charge.

And what did Andy do? He managed to get his son trapped in the backseat of that psychopath’s patrol car. Jesus Christ, every rotten thing Jodi had said about him during the divorce was true.

He looked down at Donny, who was preoccupied with the passing scenery. Either he was quite contentedly unaware of the danger they were in, or that was his way of swallowing his fear and insecurity and burying it deep. Andy hoped the boy was as easygoing as he seemed and stayed that way. It would serve him well.

Andy felt the need to speak to Ram. He was afraid that, if left to sit there and drive silently, Ram might sink deeper into whatever insanity was pulling him down.

“Hey, um, Ram?”

“Yeah?” He turned his head and glanced back through the Plexiglas. He had a big smile pushing his cheeks up and it looked genuine. He looked like he was having a grand old time.

“Everything okay?”

“Well, sure, everything’s okay. Are
you
okay? You guys need anything?”

“Do we need . . . um, no. We’re fine. I just want to make sure you’re okay. You weren’t hurt back there, or anything, were you?”

“Oh, hell, I’m fine,” he said, laughing. “I may have gotten older and fatter, but I’m still tough as nails. ’Member that time on the field when I fell and broke my arm? Holy shit, man, the bone was stickin’ right outta the skin, there, ’member that?” He laughed loudly, nodding his head with enthusiasm.

Andy never played football because his mother prohibited it, so he had no memory of Ram’s broken arm. But Ram seemed to think he would. That made Andy wonder if Ram was sure of who he was talking to in the backseat. He decided it was best to simply go along with everything Ram said. He laughed, nodded, and said, “Yeah, that was something. Hey, Ram, how are your wife and kids these days?”

“Oh, I told you already, I took care of them. Weren’t you with me when—oh, no, I guess you weren’t. Yeah, I don’t have to worry about them anymore. All taken care of.”

Andy wanted to pursue that line of discussion, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it because he was afraid he knew where it would lead—if it led anywhere.

“Where are we headed, Ram?”

“I thought you knew! We’re going to Batten. That’s a CDP on the easternmost edge of town. You know what a CDP is? A CDP is a census-designated place that’s part of unincorporated Eureka, which is why it’s in my jurisdiction, ’cause it’s outside the city limits. This is county out here. Yeah, this is all mine.”

Of course, he knew what and where Batten was, Cuppa Joe’s was in Batten, Ram knew that. What was wrong with him? What was he thinking?

“We’re going to the Clancy place. Just up the road a little here where—” As they passed Cuppa Joe’s, Ram stopped talking. His eyes locked on to the restaurant as it passed, then he turned his frown to the rearview mirror and looked at Andy with confusion for a moment. Then he nodded slightly.

“Well, then, you know the Clancys,” Ram said. “You’ve had some trouble with them, haven’t you? Yeah, that’s right. You have.”

“A little. They like to hunt on my land.”

“Well, hell, they’re not supposed to be hunting anywhere out here. But that’s the Clancy family for you.” He wore a big smile as he said, “Bunch of scum-sucking white-trash parasites. They should all be gassed, far as I’m concerned, every last one of ’em, right down to the snotty little kids they keep poppin’ out. You ever been to their place? You’ll be there in a minute. Jesus, it’s like a little trailer park in the woods, and it’s nothing but trash. Trailer trash, white trash, meth trash. Just trash.”

Oh, Christ,
Andy thought,
is this going to be another slaughter?

Ram was watching him too closely in the rearview—he’d notice if Andy took out his cell phone and made a call. He felt helpless, and yet he was overwhelmed by the urge to do something, anything.

He leaned back and turned to Donny, who was watching him. He’d been following their conversation. He looked like he wanted to say something, ask a question, maybe, but he kept it to himself because Andy had told him to say nothing, so he said nothing. He was such a good boy, so reasonable and relaxed. Given the fact that his mother was a drug addict and his father was Andy, how was that possible?

Andy leaned forward again. “That’s what the radio call was about? The Clancys?”

“Yeah. Some woman called in about shots fired at the Clancy place. Something about a crazy old man. You know, I think the hurricane is hitting. Or it’s just about to. This storm’s getting a lot worse real fast. We’re gonna be surrounded by a bunch of trees, you never know what could happen. I don’t want to leave you in the car. You and the boy should come in with me. I’ll make sure you’re kept out of danger.”

Ram looked at Donny in the rearview and grinned. “How would you like that, huh? You can watch a real police officer at work, dealing with some real bad guys, how ’bout that, huh?”

Andy turned to Donny and tried to tell him how to respond by smiling slightly and giving a subtle nod of his head. Donny picked up on it immediately. He looked at Ram and gave him a genuine smile and a nod and said, “Yeah, sure. Yeah.”

He looked at Andy in the rearview. “Hey, do you remember Miss Fisher? Our science teacher? Remember how hot she was?”

Andy rifled through his memories. He’d never paid much attention to the teachers or faculty at school. None of them seemed engaged in what they were doing and, in fact, seemed miserable. They bored him and he didn’t trust them, so beyond whatever he needed from them to complete his classes, he ignored them.

He vaguely remembered a young blond teacher in a white lab coat. That was when they were busy dissecting things, something he did not enjoy. He remembered her being young and funny and pretty, but not hot. There always seemed to be something bothering her and her distraction, her nervousness, and discomfort kept her from being hot. In Andy’s mind, anyway. If he remembered correctly, she’d committed suicide just a few months after Andy and Ram graduated.

“Yes, I remember her. The pretty blonde.”

“Pretty?” Ram said, glancing at him in a kind of triple-take. Then he shouted, “
Pretty?”

Startled by Ram’s shouted question, Andy quickly said, “Well, yeah, she was, like you said, she was, um, hot. She was really hot, I remember. She even made that lab coat sexy, didn’t she?”

“Fuckin’ A, she did. An amazing fuckin’ piece. I used to fuck her, you know.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. The first time—well, no, it wasn’t the first time ’cause we didn’t really do it, but we got each other off through our clothes in her office after school. I was supposed to be making up a test.” He laughed loudly. It was a forced, exaggerated laugh with no real joy in it.

Why is he telling me this?
Adam tried not to let the question show in his face or eyes and kept a smile plastered on his mouth like a big pair of red Halloween wax lips.

Why is he even
thinking
about this now? He just killed a house full of people, isn’t he worried about that? Isn’t he thinking about his next steps? About how he’s going to avoid his fellow deputies and other law enforcement now that he’s
—

No, no, no,
he interrupted himself.
You’ve abandoned your first thought, which was a mistake, because you were right the first time. He’s crazy. He’s just goddamned
crazy
, and you cannot figure out crazy. Just keep smiling and nodding.

“Then I had to sneak to her house,” Ram went on, “’cause we couldn’t be seen together, Jesus, she’d lose her job and I’d probably end up in therapy for the rest of my fucking life, or something, I mean, can you imagine that? Can you imagine how fucked up I’d be by now? Anyways, there was a big, steep hill behind her house and on the other side of that hill there was another neighborhood. I’d park in that neighborhood in front of an empty lot between two houses and I’d climb up that hill, trying to stick close to the trees, ’cause there were some oaks up there, and I’d go to her back gate, where she’d be waiting for me. The gate was in this really tall fence that went all the way around her backyard, which was huge, with a big aboveground pool—we fucked in that pool a few times—and a pond full of gigantic goldfish.”

Ram was talking slower now and his grin had melted into a vague smirk. He laughed again, but this time, it was warmer, quieter, more genuine. “And then I’d go in and we’d—oh, Jesus, we’d fuck like rabbits on steroids. To this day, I never met a woman who was more into sex and more ready to try, Jesus, anything, she’d do
anything
. That bitch loved cock.”

Andy didn’t know if Ram was telling the truth, but as he remembered Miss Fisher, he could believe his story somehow, it seemed right. She was always eager to please her students and wanted everyone to like her. As he remembered her, Miss Fisher’s need to be the cool teacher was obvious. Even a little desperate. Coupled with the fact that she always seemed troubled by something, she’d struck Andy back then as a neurotic person who probably needed help. But what the hell did he know? He was just a kid. He’d never told anyone about that, but he remembered it well because—now that he was rummaging through memories long unexamined, things were coming back to him—he remembered fantasizing about finding Miss Fisher in some undefined, isolated place in some distress, crying, sobbing, alone, vulnerable, and sitting down to talk to her, asking if there was anything he could do, and from there, it always descended into the kind of lurid, wildly unlikely masturbation scenario for which teenage boys have always been so well known. At some point, he’d decided that Miss Fisher was indeed hot.

“She was fucking other guys, I think, but I never found out who. Horniest woman I ever knew. She was always wet.
Always
.”

Andy turned an apologetic expression to Donny, who was looking out the window, pressing his lips together hard, and trying to stifle his laughter. That relieved Andy a little. Donny was holding up well.

“But
Jesus
, she got so fucking weird,” Ram said, shaking his head. “First, she got real clingy and needy and that wasn’t so bad, I mean, it was pretty nice, you know, because, hey, who doesn’t enjoy being wanted?”

Andy remembered not being surprised by news of Miss Fisher’s suicide and being puzzled by the fact that so many were—or claimed to be, anyway. It had seemed obvious to him that she was disturbed by something, maybe a touch unstable. He had no logical reason to back up those conclusions and certainly wasn’t qualified to render such an opinion—that was why he’d kept it to himself—but he saw it in her face, her eyes, her behavior. Maybe others didn’t see it. But it was there. Had it been pills? Had she overdosed?

“But then she got so weird and . . . possessive,” Ram said. “She wanted us to keep seeing each other the summer after graduation and we did for a while, but I had other things to do. I was looking for a job, and I finally got one, remember? Over at that tacky tourist-sucking cavern, the Samoa Cookhouse. You remember?”

Andy had no idea where Ram had and had not worked throughout his life, but he kept smiling and nodding as Ram talked.

“But she kept wanting me to come over, or meet her someplace, and I couldn’t always do that. It was nothing personal, didn’t have anything to do with her at all, not at first, I just had other shit to do, that’s all, shit I
had
to do. But she didn’t believe me. Said I was seeing some other woman. Then she said I was seeing some
guy
.” He sighed.

No, it hadn’t been an overdose. Miss Fisher had shot herself. She’d put a handgun to her temple and squeezed the trigger while lying on her bed. Later, Andy had heard that she’d been wearing sexy black-and-red lingerie when she ended her life, including fishnet stockings, crotchless panties, and a peekaboo bra. It was a titillating fact back then, but now it seemed extraordinarily odd that a woman would dress herself in such a way before blowing her brains out.

“She just got weirder and weirder,” Ram said, “until she started making threats. But her threats didn’t make any fucking sense. She said she’d tell everybody about us, which would probably land her in jail because I was underage at the time and she was my teacher. It was crazy, so I didn’t take it seriously, and then she said she’d kill herself and she showed me the scars on her wrists where she’d tried before, and I said she didn’t seem to be very good at it, so I wasn’t too worried, and
boy
, did
that
piss her off! She went crazy. Said she’d kill herself and make it look like I did it, you know,
frame
me, and, well . . . I couldn’t let that happen.” He shook his head slowly then, his eyes pensive in the rearview. Then the look was gone and he was smiling again. “Yes, had to take care of
that
, couldn’t let
that
happen. She didn’t know who she was fucking with. She was crazy, but . . . not prepared. Just like Grandpa. And the coach.” Another laugh, this one through clenched teeth as he slowly shook his head. “That coach,” he said. Then he screamed, “
That goddamned fucking coach!”