Evangeline (14 page)

“Take it all, bitch,” Danny moaned.  “Take… it… all.”

“The bitch’ll take whatever you’ve got, honey,” I replied, grinding my pelvis on him like a well-oiled machine.

Yes, boys and girls, Danny Brower was one happy camper that night, well on his way to orgasmic bliss.  But I knew something that boy didn’t:  Judgment Day cometh for our friend, Danny… and right soon.  My hand crept down and felt along the bottom edge of the mattress until my fingers brushed against the grip of a hammer. 

You see, before leaving the farm I’d decided the Smith & Wesson snub nose .38 wasn’t the right tool for the Brower boys.  Something more private was required, and I found it hanging on the pegboard above Father’s workbench.

A claw hammer. 

Ah, yes.  Daddy would have been so proud.

I wrapped my fingers around the handle and drew the Craftsman from beneath the mattress without missing a beat, a bump… or a grind.

“Danny likes?” I said, looking into the face of a dead man.

“Fuck, yeah, Danny likes.”

I was on the verge of whacking his thick Aryan skull when Kyle shouted from the hallway, “Hey, hurry the fuck up in there!”  

“Be a good boy and wait your turn,” I yelled back.  “I’ll get to you soon enough.”

“Yeah, shut the fuck up!” Danny shouted. 

“Sssh,” I whispered.  “Just close your eyes, lover, and enjoy the ride.”

He smiled and did as I asked.  “Think I’m gonna cum,” he moaned.

“No, no, no.  Wait for me,” I gently scolded him, lifting the hammer above my head.

An instant before I swung, the bastard opened his eyes.  But he was too late to stop me.  I brought that hammer down so hard it smashed through his forehead and got stuck in his skull.  The boy groaned as I tried to extract it-- loud enough that I thought his cousin might hear, so I played along.

“You like that, Danny?”   I cried out, working the hammer to and fro. “Does that feel good?  Oh, Danny, does it feel gooooood.”  

The Craftsman finally came free and I shouted in delight, “Yes!  Yes, do it again!” and I brought that hammer down once more on Danny’s skinheaded melon.  “Do it to me, Danny!  Do it to me again! And again!” I screamed in ecstasy, pounding his face another four or five times just to shut him the fuck up.

“Jesus Christ, save some for me!” laughed Kyle from the hallway.

I dismounted and stood beside the mattress, admiring my handiwork by the romantic glow of the candlelight.  It was a job well done, but our boy Danny had made quite the mess.  Blood and brains were splattered all over that Fuck Pad.  Now I wanted more.  I crossed to the door and opened it a crack.  Kyle was sitting against the wall with knees drawn, puffing his cigarette. 

“Oh, Ky-yulll!” I called in a singsong voice.  “It’s your turn now.”

“About fucking time,” he groused as he stood.  “Tell him to get his ass out here.”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?”

I opened the door a little wider and retreated into the shadows, allowing Kyle to enter.  The boy stopped short when he saw his brother lying on the mattress in a bloody swamp.

“What the fuck?”

Those, my friends, were Kyle Brower’s famous last words.   

THUNK!
  I clobbered the back of his skull with the claw hammer.  His body pitched forward and crashed to the floor where it shuddered and twitched as though being poked with a cattle prod.  I squatted on his broad back and started hammering away on his thick noggin while singing; “I’ve been working on the railroad, all the live-long day.  I’ve been working on the railroad, just to pass the time away…”

It was a little ditty I’d learned from Father, who used to pound nails in his workshop to that song.  Now I was pounding me some Brower. 

“Can’t you hear the whistle blowing; rise up so early in the morn.  Can’t you hear the captain shouting… Dinah blow your horn.”

Friends, by the time I’d finished the first verse I was totally spent-- only in a good way, you know?  Like the feeling you get after a hard workout.  The killing was done.  I’d pounded those Browers into hamburger-- now it was time to cut ‘em and cook ‘em.   

I retrieved Kyle’s lit cigarette from the floor where he’d dropped it, tucked it between my lips, then crossed to a greasy blanket crumpled in the corner of the room.  Underneath was the gas can and my macramé purse which I’d hidden, along with the hammer, shortly before the first houseguests arrived.  I slipped my trusty hand sickle from the purse and knelt beside Danny Brower. 

Okay, technically he and his cousin weren’t convicted Level Threes like the others on the list, but Angeline was only sixteen at the time, and according to Nebraska law, her pussy was out of bounds.  Far as I was concerned, the Brower boys were guilty of statutory rape; a verdict that qualified for both the hammer… and the sickle. 

“Dinah won’t you blow… Dinah won’t you blow… Dinah won’t you blow your hor-or-orn…”  First Danny, then Kyle.  As Susan Weaver would say, the Hacker took their pee pees.  “Dinah won’t you blow, Dinah won’t you blow… Dinah won’t you blow your horn.”

Each prick was slipped into a Ziplock sandwich bag and dropped into the purse along with my tools.  Then I twisted the cap off the gas can and doused the Browers with regular unleaded (they didn’t deserve premium) and from one end of the room to the other.  I figured if cremation was good enough for dur Fuhrer, it was good enough for those Adolph Shitler wannabes.  

“Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah,” I sang as I merrily splished and splashed.  “Someone’s in the kitchen I know-o-o-o.  Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinahhhh… strummin’ on the old banjo, and singing fee, fie, fiddly-i-o.  Fee, fie, fiddly-i-o-o-o-o.  Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinahhhhhh…”

I stepped into the hall with the purse slung over my shoulder, took a few puffs on Kyle’s Marlboro then flicked it toward the mattress.    

PHOOOOM!

“Strummin’ on the old banjo!”

Walking at a brisk clip, I headed downstairs and slipped through the partiers without making eye contact.  The kids were still smoking, drinking and carrying on as I left the house, oblivious to the hell that was coming from above. 

I crossed the oil road and headed into the hayfield.  As I reached the truck, I paused and glanced back.  A bright orange glow was visible in the Fuck Pad’s window.  I hoisted myself into the cab, closed the door and waited.  Before long the fire was out the window and licking beneath the eaves.  That ramshackle farmhouse was a tinderbox…. and all Peter Mohr’s hard work was about to go up in spectacular flames. 

I wouldn’t be around to see it happen, though.  I had to get Angeline’s Ford F-100 out of there before it was recognized.  As I drove onto the County Oil Road and left the Mohr’s behind, kids were scurrying out like disturbed ants, and the entire second floor was burning.

Stumpy didn’t bow
l
that Saturday.  Like most lawmen in Holt County, he was called to work when members of a volunteer fire department found two charred bodies in the ruins of a derelict farmhouse on the county line.  All the kids had fled before the fire trucks arrived, but the next day someone came forward to describe a girl with a short black dress and big black hair leading the Browers upstairs shortly before the fire. 

Suspicion immediately fell on the L3K. 

“Ain’t this is a crock of shit?” the deputy growled as he slung the gun belt around his waist.  “Like I haven’t already put enough goddamn overtime in on this case.  Now I’ve gotta give up bowling, too?”

Angeline figured it was a rhetorical question and didn’t bother answering as she stepped into the walk-in pantry with a jar of pickled tomatoes. 

“This is Knox’s jurisdiction, goddammit,” the deputy railed before stomping out the door with a parting, “Lazy ass sons of bitches.”

Sister poked her head from the pantry, saw the man had gone, then slumped into a chair at the kitchen table.  The poor thing was so desperate to remember the night before that she gave herself a splitting headache.  She recalled being tucked into bed by Mother, but after that there was nothing.  No memory at all until morning.  Certainly it was possible she’d slept straight through the night.  No reason to believe otherwise… except.

Angeline had doubts.  Terrible, terrible doubts pricked at her mind.  The girl couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it was there alright-- a gnawing gut sense that something horrific had happened… that somehow, someway, she’d been the lead actor in last night’s tragedy at the Mohr’s. 

All through the weekend Sister was gripped by that dark mood, too angst-ridden to sleep yet too exhausted to stay awake.  By Monday morning the girl was a physical wreck and dreaded going to school.  All those accusing stares and malicious asides would just add to her misery. 

Thankfully that wasn’t the case.  Angeline “Cock Monster” Gottschalk was yesterday’s news by the time she arrived at school.  The fickle student body had moved on.  The fire at the Mohr’s was now the big talk at Willowdale High, which was just fine with Sister. 

Oddly enough, the one person who showed an interest in Angeline was Caleb Quinn.  The boy’s indifference had given way to a kind of morbid curiosity-- as though Sister were some science lab experiment gone awry.  All through the week she would catch him studying her in the hallways, until the final bell on Friday when Caleb cornered Sister at her locker and said with a grave look, “We need to talk.  Meet me in the gym in twenty minutes.  If I’m not there, wait for me, understand?”

Angeline nodded and Caleb started away before turning with an afterthought.  “Make sure you’re there.  This is important.”

The gymnasium was empt
y
when Angeline entered.  The basketball backboards were cranked into the rafters, the bleachers vacant.  She crossed the hardwood court, her footsteps echoing through the cavernous space, then climbed halfway up one of the aisles and took a seat.

It wasn’t long before Caleb emerged from the locker room at the far end of the gym.  The boy crossed the floor unsmiling, wearing a pair of gold football pants without pads, and a blue sweatshirt cut off at the sleeves and emblazoned with the words “WHS Football”.  He climbed the steps toward Angeline and took the seat on the aisle opposite her. 

For a long time he sat there with hands clasped before him, gathering his thoughts, saying nothing, before turning with an intense gaze.  “I’m going to ask you something.  And I’d appreciate the truth.”

“Okay,” agreed Angeline.

“That day when you told me someone was in your head… what’d you mean by that?”

Sister hesitated before answering.  She was thinking about mentioning the sex offender list--how the torn scraps had magically reassembled--but she couldn’t bring herself to go there.  So instead she told him, “It’s… It’s just this… things happen that I dddd-don’t remember.  That I can’t explain.”

“Do you remember me driving you back to your truck from the Mohr’s?”

She shook her head. 

“What about being in the back of my brother’s van with the Browers?”

A mortified look crossed Sister’s face.  “Wha-what?  No.”  She didn’t like where this was headed.  More gaps in the memory.  More validation of an unsettling truth she didn’t need right now.

“You, Danny and Kyle.  You don’t remember that?” Caleb said pointedly, taking her measure.  “Don’t bullshit me, Angeline.”

“I’m not.  I swear.”

The boy reflected on this briefly before crossing the aisle and taking a seat next to her.  “You heard about the fire,” he said in a moment.  “About what happened to the Browers?”

“Yes,” she answered, her stomach knotting. 

“Where were you that night?”

“Home… sleeping.”

“You sure about that?”

Angeline cast her eyes at her feet and shook her head.  “No,” she finally admitted in a voice that barely rose above a whisper.  “I’m not sure of anything anymore.” 

Caleb raked fingers through his hair and said, “I’m asking because… there was this girl I saw just before the fire.  She was going upstairs with the Browers.  And there was something about the way she looked at me.  Something I couldn’t figure out, you know?  It bugged the shit out of me all week.  And then I remembered.”  He locked eyes with Angeline.  “That girl looked at me the same way you did in the back of Billy’s van that night.”

Angeline’s guts were churning.  It was like watching a car speeding toward a cliff.  She knew what was coming--knew it was going to be horrific--but she couldn’t look away.

“Anyway… that got me thinking about what you said,” Caleb continued.  “About someone else being in your head.   When you first told me that I thought you were fucking with me again, you know?  But now…” he shook his head.  “Now I’m not so sure.  Because that girl in Billy’s van?  The one I drove back to the truck that night?  She’s not the girl I’m talking to now.  Not even close.  Shit, even your stutter was gone.”  He paused, holding Sister’s gaze.  “You weren’t there, Angel,” he finally said.  “You weren’t even there.”

Angeline knew the boy was telling the truth… and it made her ill.  She swallowed the gush of spit in her mouth and worried she might throw up.