Текст книги "Fear Itself"

Автор книги: Duffy Prendergast

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

16

Amazingly I had forgotten to be afraid of the dark until I reached the driveway. When I got out of the car I bolted toward the side door and up the steps until I reached my back door which was still standing open and I turned on the ceiling light and slammed the door behind me and fell back against the door and slid to the floor. I held out my hands and was astonished at my trembling fingers. I could have thoroughly shaken a martini but I could not have brought the glass to my lips to drink it.

I was in deep trouble and I knew it. So was Sarah. We were doomed. The police would not be far behind. Once Melanie was able to give them her home address they would be coming for me. My first instinct was to grab Sarah and put her in the car and drive away. But the police knew what my car looked like and they had my license plate number. I could have taken Melanie’s car but it would not have taken them long to figure out that her car was missing and we would have been caught. I had no money. Melanie had deposited all of my money into her account as I could not have my own account. We were cornered like rats.

And then there was Sarah. How long could I go on consciously allowing her to kill people? To stop her we would either have to live on a deserted island or I would have to turn her in to the authorities and she would grow up surrounded by doctors in a psychiatric ward. And if she was designated a sociopath she would be incurable. She would never be permitted to leave and both of our hearts would be eternally broken.

I pushed myself up from the floor and I walked into her room. I stood over her bed and looked down upon her warm innocent pink face; at her little mushroom nose and her round little cheeks and the maturing stretch of her face. She looked so harmless in her sleep. Tears streamed from my eyes as I came to realize what I ought to do. What I had to do.

I knelt down beside her on the bed and I rested my head on her little chest and I listened to her heart beat and I felt the warmth of her body. Hers was the only unconditional love I had ever known. She was the only person who I had ever trusted to be loyal to me and to love me as much as I had loved her. We had been inseparable since her birth. She had grown up lying on my chest or in the company of unfamiliar faces she had attached herself to my leg; and when we walked she held my finger or I carried her or pushed her in the stroller. Every happy moment of my life since her birth involved her. I squeezed her little body and then I stood and kissed her forehead before backing out of her room.

I went to the living room and I paced from there to the kitchen and back several times. Sarah was my life. The police would soon be coming. I could not let them take her.

I was always of the mindset that where there was a problem there was always a solution. There had to be some way out of the mess we were in. Someone we could turn to. Some way to live with Sarah without letting her hurt anyone.

I returned to Sarah’s room again and once again I studied her face; it was no longer round but rather longish; her brow, her lashes, the cut of her nose foretold of the blossoming of her forthcoming womanhood; of a not so distant day when she would be more independent; more capable. She was nine years old…almost ten. She was still so little. She was so loving to me. How could she be a monster when she was still my baby?

Fuck the world, I thought.

But then I thought about the life that she would lead; the murders she would commit. She would kill again. She would live a life on the run until she was caught and then she would be caged. She would be miserable. And what of the many victims she would leave behind. What of their families. What if she killed some little girl at her school who refused to share a toy or who was foolish enough to taunt her? What then?

I walked out of Sarah’s bedroom slowly with my head slumped down. I no longer felt the urge to release my anxiety by pacing the floor. I went into the living room and I slumped into the sofa and I stared out into space and wondered what I had done so wrong and tears began to pour like drizzle from my eyes.

I just sat there for a while trying to convince myself that I had other options. Finally I got up and I walked to the kitchen.

In the kitchen I found Melanie’s purse hanging from the back of a chair and I sifted through its compartments and found a full bottle of sleeping pills. I had seen the receipt on her dresser for the new bottle of pills and knew that she had refilled her prescription. I pressed down on the child-proof cap and I twisted the lid until it sprang open. I held out my palm and spilled six capsules from the bottle; but then I slipped them back into the container and resealed it. I restored the bottle to Melanie’s purse. I couldn’t do it. But then I pondered which was the lesser of the two evils: letting Sarah be caged or letting her fall asleep…forever. I pulled the bottle of pills from Melanie’s purse once again and I spilled six pills into my palm and then I resealed the lid and returned the bottle to Melanie’s purse.

The large clear glass pitcher in the refrigerator was filled with Sarah’s favorite drink: cherry Koolaide. Sweat formed on the glass as I removed the pitcher from the icebox and placed it on the table and then I plucked a small drinking glass from the cupboard and placed it on the table. I carefully cracked open the first capsule and poured the powder into the glass. One by one I severed the sleeping pills and poured their contents out until there was a miniature mound of white powder in the bottom center of the tumbler. The red dye in the Koolaide clouded up as I spilled it over the powder but the drug quickly dissolved and disappeared.

I slinked to the bathroom and I dropped the empty capsules into the toilet and I flushed. I put the Koolaide back inside the refrigerator and I carried the glass to the living room and placed it on a coaster next to the wooden rocking chair that sat near the fireplace. I rekindled the ashes from the previous fire and then placed a fresh log on the fire.

As I stood at Sarah’s bedroom threshold

I wondered how Abraham must have felt as he carried Isaac to the altar. I wondered how he could have brought himself to sacrifice his only child. He must have loved his god as I loved Sarah or he could not have done it. I knew that what I was doing was for Sarah’s benefit. I knew that if I failed her that she would be miserable for the rest of her days. I stepped into the bedroom and I carefully picked Sarah up from her bed, her blanket still wrapped around her body. I carried her into the living room and I sat down on the rocking chair placing her on my lap. Sarah stirred but she was still sound asleep. I kissed her on the forehead and her skin warmed my lips and tears began to stream again like a thick heavy summer rain down onto Sarah’s face. I prayed for God to come down from heaven and substitute my sacrifice with a lamb, but God was nowhere to be found. Sarah was a damaged human being. She would kill and kill and kill and there was nothing short of her demise that would protect the world from her or protect her from the world. It was my duty as a father to protect her from the wrath of the living and my obligation to the living to protect them from my Sarah.

I stroked Sarah’s face with my hand and I nuzzled her cheek to my whisker covered face and her eyes fluttered open.

“What are you doing daddy?” her voice was dry and scratchy.

“I just wanted to hold you honey.”

Sarah smiled up at me, but as tears once again filled my eyes and I felt my face collapse as I tried to hold back the flow that had welled– up inside of my head, she frowned.

“What’s the matter daddy?”

“Nothing sweetheart.” My voice broke and I turned my head away and sniffled and wiped my eyes on my sleeve, “I just wanted to hold you honey.”

“Where’s Melanie.” “She’s asleep.”

“She’ll probably stay asleep because of her pills, huh?”

I heard a pained yelp cry out from somewhere deep inside of me as Sarah’s words reinforced what I already knew. “Yes honey, she’ll probably stay asleep. It’ll be just you and me.”

“Okay lover.” She flared her eyebrows up at me seductively and I laughed and cried in the same breath.

“Okay lover.” I forced a smile.

“Can we go out for breakfast…just you and me…like on a date?”

“Anything you want honey.”

“And can we get married again?” her eyes grew wide, “In a real church like we did last time?”

“I would love to marry you again.”

“I love you daddy. You’re the best daddy in the world.” Her words were whittling away at my resolve. My heart felt as though it might burst through my chest.

“I love you too.”

I lifted the glass from the table, “Look what I brought for you. I knew you’d be thirsty.”

Sarah smiled and reached for the glass but as her hands tried to take it from me I found that I couldn’t let it go.”

“Quit teasing me daddy.” She scolded with a serious glower that looked no more threatening than her smile.

I let her take the glass and I watched as she greedily gulped down the cold red liquid holding the tumbler with both hands. I took the glass from her and I placed it on the table and then I buried my head into her chest and I sobbed out loud.

“Its okay daddy, I’ll hold you.” Sarah wrapped her arms around me and I held her so tight that I thought that I might be suffocating her and I let up.

I rocked her in silence until she fell back asleep. And then I rocked her until she turned blue. And I continued to rock her even then as the sun came up and filled the room with the cheerful lie of a bright dawning day; the light of hope; the promise of nothing. I rocked Sarah still as the room turned dark and the sky outside faded back into night.

* * *

When Melanie walked through the kitchen door I was still holding Sarah in the rocking chair. She walked toward me and sat down on the couch across from me. She drew a deep sigh. She did not know that Sarah was dead.

“How did you get home?” I asked.

“I took a cab.” “Are you okay?”

“A little tired, but yes.”

“I didn’t think that they would let you out so soon.”

“They didn’t. I hate hospitals. I snuck out.”

“I’m sorry for what happened.”

“I know you are…but I think it would be best,” she sniffled and wiped her eyes with a tissue, “if the two of you left.”

“I know. I’ll leave in the morning.”

“I’d rather you left now. I don’t think I’ll feel safe with the two of you in my house.” She looked down at me but then raised her head to keep her tears from spilling from her eyes. It was wonderful of her to feel so bad for doing what she had no choice but to do. I could tell that it hurt her to evict us. I could tell that she loved us still.

“Sarah won’t be a bother anymore. She’s sleeping. She won’t wake up.”

“I don’t think it was Sarah who poisoned me.”

“I would never hurt you.”

Melanie got up and bravely walked up to me and unfolded the blanket from Sarah’s face. Sarah’s eyes were closed and other than the blue hue above her cheeks she looked as though she were sleeping.

“Let me hold her, please.” Melanie was crying now as a stream of tears dripped from her eyelashes now that she could see that Sarah was dead.

“Things were so perfect there for a while. What happened?” I said.

“I don’t know.” She sobbed. “Can I hold her?” “No.” “Please.”

“Go to bed. I’ll be gone in the morning.”

Melanie turned and walked toward her bedroom.

“Will you see that she gets a proper burial?” I said.

“Yes.” She said without turning around and then she stepped into her room and I heard her latch the door.

17

Sigmund Freud once said that the goal of all life is death. If that is the case: mission accomplished. Except for Melanie all whom I have loved have succeeded in their goal and I wait impatiently for my own end. If I were not so afraid of the dark I would end my own life; but I am a coward’s coward. I can only hope that death will sneak up behind me and take me without my knowing it so that I can end the misery that is my existence.

My dreams of late, on the rare occasions I can fall asleep, have included visits from all three of my past lovers. Of them only

Melanie still wishes to make love to me.

Perhaps it is because she is still alive and both Amber and Catherine are dead. None of them visits me with another in the same dream. I think that they are jealous of each other. But Sarah enters all of my dreams at some point or other. Thankfully, she no longer takes on a sexual role. We hold hands and walk and talk. She often asks me why I killed her and I tell her that it was because I love her. She declares her innocence and I am left to speculate. If there is a god in heaven I can only hope that he will have mercy on me for it can be said that right or wrong, taking Sarah’s life was a mercy killing. I didn’t benefit from her death; on the contrary… in taking her life I also took my own.

It was in one such dream that I came to finally forgive Catherine for her transgression.

She told me in a dream that she did not have an affair. She said that she slept with Henry for one purpose only. She wanted to become pregnant. She had hoped that I would never find out and that we could live happily ever after. So much for hopes.

Because I no longer had any reason to stay in Kansas I made the long drive back to Cleveland. I swapped license plates with a Mustang of a similar year at an auto body shop to keep the police from taking notice of my car. On the road back to Cleveland I slept in the back seat of the car rather than venturing the risk of staying in the beds of dive motels. With the doors locked and the car running and the dome light on I was far less anxious than I had once been. Life no longer meant enough for me to concern myself with the demons in the dark. But it was the demons in the dark and certainly not death that I had always feared.

In Cleveland I ditched the car on the west side in a dark alley.

On the day on which I first returned to Cleveland I called information from a pay phone. I remember that there was a cold rain outside of what must have been the last working phone booth in the city. I was shivering and soaked from head to toe. I tried to locate Tommy Sullivan. I needed a friend and he was the only man I knew who would be a friend to a man like me, but alas I could not find him.

Wallowing in the sewer of a city, with its seedy poverty stricken drug infested underbelly completely exposed made me crave death even more than I had after I had snuffed out Sarah’s life. And as I spent each horrifying night sleeping in the high corner of the underside of the steel skeleton of the Carnegie bridge scared to death of my own shadow I contemplated a high plunge from the center of the arch. But I found that I was more terrified of the darkness on the other side of death than the darkness of this world.

I ate lukewarm soup at food shelters ladled out by the most kind-hearted people on the planet. To brave the likes of me and the others in the motley mob who shared our meal our hosts must have been saints. We were sinners all: drug addicts, alcoholics, thieves and murderers.

The truth was that I wasn’t living I was waiting to die. I was waiting for the day when the police would show up at my proverbial door and take me quietly away to face the music for Sarah’s sins as well as for my own.

I took some time one Saturday to visit my old neighborhood. After begging some coins from some kind-hearted pedestrians I took the city bus. I visited the baseball diamond. It was overgrown with waist high weeds and the backstop had transformed itself into a collapsed tumble of chain-link fence and rotted timber. Despite its decrepitude I could not help but to wallow in the nostalgia of the place where Catherine and I had first made love.

On a subsequent day I scrolled through the phone book and the internet from a computer at the library trying to find Tommy Sullivan. I tried to trace old acquaintances from the neighborhood and after a great amount of diligence I found Tony Artino. He held no grudge, or so he said, after so many years, but I doubted him because he did not remember Tommy Sullivan at all and he did not recollect his own molestation of Catherine nor did he remember our scuffle in the same manor in which I had. He didn’t remember getting his ass kicked by Tommy and he only remembered fighting me. He asked if I was still crazy and I hung up the phone on him.

I searched the county hall of records for the deed to the home that Tommy’s family had once owned and lived in, a yellow aluminum sided ranch house at the end of our street (the site of a vacant lot upon my visit) nearest the ball field, in the hopes of finding him through his family but the records that far back were inaccurate and poorly kept because I could find no such house and no such owner.

My mother used to ask me why she had never met this Tommy Sullivan kid. She wondered if he wasn’t just a figment of my imagination; someone who I had conjured up to fight my battles when things got out of hand.

What a ridiculous notion.

THE END