The Best new Horror 4 Read online

  Masks confounded Patty. She had hers; the perfectionist, the always cool, always composed, usually right, and sometimes impervious, as well as others. But they were so automatic, so natural, they felt like they were her. Yet in her gut, she knew they were about hiding the desperate loneliness, the emptiness, and the anxious feeling of knowing she was so horribly imperfect, ordinary and inept. Dawn had her brick wall toughness and barroom raunchiness. What tender, marshmallow heart might that mask be covering up?

  She thought of Michael; his steel-plated heart masked by a face of sweet passion, ardor. She hadn’t been able to see it until the marriage seemed over. Well, she’d sensed it in the beginning, but there had been so many wonderful things about him to distract her. She bit her lip and began pacing. There was still so much she resisted thinking about Michael. Denial, Liz called it. By the time they were finally called into the courtroom, she was actually excited to return. Her feelings confused her.

  She sat down and watched as Richard Dahlquist walked to the stand. Garrick slouched in his seat and looked away petulantly. His attorney whispered to him, shaking his head. Patty took up her notepad and turned to the top of a new page. This witness was important. She knew it the moment she saw Garrick grow uncomfortable.

  Dahlquist had been a Vietnam buddy of Garrick’s, twenty years back. They had been stationed together at Pleiku. Dahlquist was a newlywed then and Garrick a lonely bachelor. After lengthy questioning, under cross and re-cross examination, Richard Dahlquist told a story of deceit and betrayal. Garrick had been invited to live with Dahlquist upon his discharge from the army, and did stay for almost a year. Garrick then disappeared with Dahlquist’s wife and the eight thousand dollars the couple had saved to buy a house. Seven months later, Dahlquist’s wife was found incoherent and near death from malnutrition, chained to a motel bed. She managed to commit suicide less than three weeks later in a psychiatric hospital without having spoken a word. Until he was called for trial, Dahlquist had not seen or heard from Garrick. He’d put the past behind him. Dahlquist told the jury that for Garrick to think Dahlquist would want to dredge it up by framing him twenty years later for a murder was ridiculous.

  Patty wanted to tell Dahlquist she was sorry, that she would make sure Garrick was found guilty, but she knew she couldn’t. It had to be enough to know it herself. She smiled at him as he passed by, hoping her feelings were conveyed.

  All the way home, Patty thought about what a relief it was going to be to have the weekend ahead of her to get away from the trial. There was just one more day. One more night . . .

  She drank an entire pot of coffee. As the caffeine began its tap dance on her nerves, she got the jitters. She wouldn’t be sleeping this night. No way. No more dreams. She turned on the radio, the television, flicked on all the lights, squinting in their brightness, and put out a carton of cigarettes. She read the juicy, backstabbing, Hollywood gossip novel she’d been saving for an occasion such as this. Shortly after Johnny Carson, she fell asleep in her chair.

  She dreamed she was sick. Very sick. She was sitting in a bathtub in a motel, a few inches of water and her own wastes beneath her. Her arms were covered with sores, festering, her legs a map of infected gouges and burns. Her throat hurt and she was dizzy with fever. Her chest felt tight and ached when she coughed. She was naked and cold, shivering under a bare light bulb. She gagged as she coughed and threw up bits of cracker and bile.

  He kicked open the bathroom door. He wore new red cowboy boots and a pair of pre-faded blue jeans. Tight ones. He still looked good to her, though it was painful to feel any desire.

  He asked her what she wanted. She told him water, some clothes, a blanket. A doctor, couldn’t he see she was sick? He knew she was sick, he told her as he poured her a glass of water. When it was full he turned and tossed it on her. That would clean her up some. He laughed at her. She was disgusting to look at. She should see herself.

  When she began to cry, he knelt down beside the tub. She could smell the alcohol on his breath as he breathed through his mouth. He held his nostrils pinched. She stunk, she knew it. She hoped he would soften as he had so many times now when she cried. Sometimes he made love to her. When was that? Days ago, weeks? Before she got sick. If only he would hold her, make her warm.

  He told her he knew she wanted it, that he knew she was addicted to his lovemaking, but now, she would have to watch. He unzipped his jeans and began to jerk off. She watched the strangely scarred foreskin shrink off his glans until she could only see the blur of his fist moving. He grabbed a towel and held it over his mouth and nose, grunting. His eyes burned into her, as if to say “suffer as I have.” She tried to raise her hand to touch him, but the chains were heavy and she was so weak. He howled as he ejaculated over the rim of the tub. Then he rose, unsteady, and told her he didn’t need her anymore.

  She lay still after he left, feeling more lonely and tortured inside than hurt by any of the physical abuse. There was no one in her life but him. He couldn’t see she loved him, that he was her life, that she was willing to do the penance if she could be released to make him truly happy. Now, he didn’t need her. She had nothing. Was nothing. She pulled her filthy hands up, put her fingertips to her forehead, the chains softly clinking in her lap, and prayed she would soon die.

  Her chapped lips opened to say the words. “Please, God, take me.”

  Patty heard her own voice saying the words and wakened with a start. “Damn!”

  The lights blinded her, the sound of the radio and television overwhelmed her, the bang of the newspaper being slammed against her front door pulled her from the chair. She ran into the bedroom and stood before her mirror. Shaking, she slowly peeled her robe off, afraid the sores would be there. She swallowed to see if her throat was raw. She felt her head for fever. She remembered the man was Garrick. Again.

  “You can’t let this thing get to you!” Patty laughed nervously. She wrapped the robe tightly around her and reminded herself it had just been a dream. She took a cigarette and lit it. The smoke of her cigarette smelled like feces and urine and rotting flesh. She felt her gorge rising and made it to the toilet in time to vomit.

  She drove to the courthouse with the car windows down. By the time she arrived, the smell was gone. She stood outside the building, shaken. An emotional boxing match was going on inside of her. She was compelled to go in, to continue subjecting herself to the influences of a man who was stealing into her sleep, who somehow might be able to reach inside her and know what she thought, what she felt. If she believed that, then he could own her as he had the victim she dreamed she had been just hours ago. She wanted to run.

  “You going to stand out here all day or come on in?” Ralph came up beside her and touched her shoulder. She winced and jerked away.

  “Ah! Uh . . . yes, of course. Sorry. I’m a bit jumpy this morning. Too much coffee, not enough sleep.”

  “Right. Well, come on then. We don’t want that judge to come down on us for being late, now do we?”

  Patty shook her head. She looked at Ralph as they crossed the street then walked the polished granite halls of the courthouse to Department 83. Was he being affected by the trial? Were his dreams being colored by Garrick?

  The first witness was a detective, Louis Molina. He was the chief investigating officer. He was present when they found Marianne Murphy’s body in the alley behind a Quick Stop Market. He testified to the body’s condition. Then came the photographs. The jury was warned the photos were disturbing, and everyone tried to glance at them quickly and pass them on, yet it was impossible to look at them with detachment, without morbid curiosity. Patty was the third juror to see them. She found herself staring after them as they were passed on. It astounded her that no one fainted or ran to throw up or moaned in distaste, yet she, too, felt stunned into silence.

  Next up was a Sergeant Les Duncan from the Bakersfield sheriff’s department. A couple meeting the description of Murphy and Garrick had stayed in the Del Rey Motel, which led to an
investigation there. A male had paid for the room with a stolen credit card.

  The prosecution then called in the motel owner who was working the day the man meeting Garrick’s description showed up. When he was asked to look around the courtroom and tell the jury if he saw the man who had registered as a Max Lerner, the owner of the stolen credit card, the motel owner pointed to Garrick. He told the jury he hadn’t checked the credit card because Garrick had looked so honest.

  Patty tried to listen, but the image of Marianne Murphy’s remains was burned into her brain. She hoped she would not be dreaming the events that led to Marianne’s disfigurement, the missing parts of her.

  Then the attorneys proceeded to play with two psychiatrists called in as experts in the field of sensational murders and sex crimes. The line of questioning proved to be argumentative, long, loud, and moot. Patty shut it out when her stomach grew tight and she began to feel faint. More psychobabble.

  The drive home was excruciatingly tedious. Smog wafted in with the air conditioned cool, and a head-ache turned into a full-blown migraine. At six-thirty, Patty was on her way to the emergency ward with Liz. By seven she was throwing up, her vision was blurred; a vise had a death grip on her head making her skin too painful to touch. She begged to be put to sleep. She hadn’t had a migraine since college. Or was it the divorce? She finally slept a deep, drugged sleep, dreaming of nothing.

  Saturday, Liz picked Patty up and took her home. Patty was still suffering a drug-muffled pain. She curled up in her bed as Liz sat beside her, frowning.

  “It’s the damned trial, isn’t it?”

  “Please. Don’t use any words with consonants in them. They hurt my ears. I just need my drugs and silence.”

  “The doctor said no stress for twenty-four hours. Not that you should move into a monastery.”

  “No stress means a weekend in the Bahamas. Christ, I have a migraine from the smog, the heat, the traffic, not getting enough sleep, not just the trial. I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but I know the fucker is guilty and I’m going to be sure we all come to the same verdict. Now, leave me alone with some ice cream, my cigarettes, and I’ll be just fine.”

  “I want to stay with you. I’m worried about you.”

  Patty was not in the habit of asking for anything from anyone. She found it difficult to say she needed someone, much less allow herself to feel it. But now, maybe now.

  “Okay. I really don’t want to be alone. Just promise me one thing.”

  Liz brightened. “Sure, anything.”

  “Don’t let me fall asleep.”

  “I don’t get it.” Her face fell.

  “I can’t explain it. Just don’t let me sleep, all right?”

  Liz nodded, suspicious. They played games that forgave Patty’s drugged limitations, laughed about their long history together, ate too much, and watched rented movies. Liz finally collapsed, exhausted, into sleep. Patty watched Liz’s even breathing, beatific face, and felt envious of her dreams. With Liz there as a comfort, Patty believed that with the aid of a sleeping pill, she might get another dreamless night’s sleep. She took a yellow capsule, lay down, and stared at Liz’s jittering eyelids until her own began to droop.

  It was dark and incredibly hot. She was being jostled about. She was fading in and out of consciousness. She smelled car exhaust and hot asphalt, blood and a wool blanket. She could hear the faint sound of a radio, cars and trucks passing, the hum of their tires on the road beneath her. She was in the trunk of the car. She was on fire, her wounds were dull constant aches. Everything went blank a moment, then it was dark, but cold, very cold. She smelled oil and metal and sawdust. She was lying on something hard, a bench, a coffin? She heard the distant sound of a buzz saw, the crunching of bone, the brittle screams of someone tired and scared and wracked by the pain. She felt a warm wetness splashing at her face, then the feathery slap of flesh freed from its bonds. She wanted to reach to her eyes, pull away the gauze that covered them so she could see, but when she willed her arm to rise, there was nothing to raise. She tried to blink, then realized she had no eyes beneath the useless flaps of skin that wriggled wormlike over empty orbs. She wanted to scream “why?” one more time. Perhaps he would answer now. But, the effort was too much and with her last breath, she could only think it.

  Why?

  Patty gasped for air, grabbed for something, anything, to feel her arms, her legs. She struggled her eyes open, closed them, touched them, blinked. Liz lay sleeping below her on the cot, snoring softly. Reality. She held herself and cried softly.

  When they sat down to breakfast, the truth was trapped, captive in her throat. Patty knew that telling Liz about the last week was admitting she was crazy. Liz was already worried about Patty. This would simply confirm her worst fears.

  Patty would get through this on her own. She’d done it with the divorce and she could do it with the trial. She had always done things this way. It was all she knew.

  The next night, her sleep was full of dreams of light and color and peace. She woke surprised yet relieved. It was finally over.

  As the trial went on, Garrick increased his intimidating stares and the jury grew more nervous as he did. Except for Patty. He was done with her. Perhaps he was working on another juror. She didn’t know, and didn’t care. She listened with detached ease, relaxed, took notes, and felt her old self again. She chatted with the others on breaks, even taking time to talk with Dawn; who seemed more troubled every day, yet revealed nothing. Garrick wasn’t bothering Patty, but then she wasn’t going to let him catch her eye, either. It felt good to cheat him, deprive him of his power over her.

  One night, she and Liz met for dinner. She watched Liz scan the room for men like a great white shark at the beach on Labor Day. Soon, Patty’s obsessing was forgotten as Liz managed to lure two urologists from the bar to sit with them. The talk went from dull chit-chat to genitalia and circumcision. The more wine they drank, the more graphic the detail. Liz had that effect on men.

  Patty found herself mesmerized by the medical jargon, the immense amount of information about things she had believed she knew most all there was to know. She asked them about the foreskin she had seen in her dream, saying she’d seen a photograph once. One of the doctors told her her description reminded him of an odd case he’d seen in his residency of a boy of seventeen who had been sexually abused by his Satan-worshipping parents. They had inserted rings through his foreskin and hung him from an inverted cross. The man had come in for help when the scar tissue was so severe, the foreskin would not retract and he couldn’t urinate properly.

  Liz balked. She had her limits and after all, she just wanted to move onto the next part of the ritual. “God, this is revolting party conversation. Let’s go into the bar and dance. I can hear the band. They sound great.”

  Patty wasn’t in a mood to dance after learning about what she’d seen in her dreams. She excused herself and went home.

  Once in bed, she had the sensation of yearning to fall asleep, craving it. As if something wonderful was waiting there. She could feel the wine had dulled her senses, quelled her fears. She fell slowly, deeply asleep.

  He was faceless. He came to her from a brilliant light that kept him in silhouette. His voice was deep and calm, so like Michael’s. He was naked. He stood at the foot of her bed and held his arms out to her. She kneeled before him, tentative, yet desirous.

  “I am who you have longed for all your life, Patricia. I am love and light and security. I am giving and caring and constant. I am a reflection of your desires. Let me hold you. Allow me to be all you deserve and more. Share with me the pleasures I can assure you of for as long as you live. You have but to open your heart.”

  With a willingness she never knew she possessed, she leaned into him. The sensation of warm flesh, firm muscle, and gentle caresses seemed so real though she knew she was in a dream. Even as she kissed him, his face remained vague, insubstantial. His tongue met hers with the cool heat of passion and she was lost.
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br />   He moved with liquid ease over her, until she was lying spread open beneath him. His tongue traveled over her body with the knowing progress of her ancient fantasies’ longings. She climaxed a second and third time before the dream man rose up, turned halfway away from her, revealing a huge erection, then walked back into the light. She awoke with the after-glow radiating through her body.

  How sweet sleep was now.

  The dream was the same each night. During that week, the trial began winding down. Witnesses were called mainly to corroborate previous testimony. Others were recalled. Patty was growing bored. She began taunting Garrick with surreptitious glances every few minutes. It was as if the new dreams were making her stronger, giving her a sense of fullness, invulnerability. She was choosing the dream now, not Garrick. With the security of that knowledge, she let her eyes fall on him and easily pulled away when he caught her eye. Each time she tried it, she felt better. She kept it up for two days.

  She began to feel irritated by her dream lover’s turning away. Soon after the irritation grew into angry frustration, the dreams began to change. He stopped opening his arms to her, and instead stood at the foot of the bed and stroked himself. She leaned toward him, eager to touch his penis, pull him into her, then the dream would fold into darkness. The dream continued for a few more nights, resisting Patty’s strong desire to conform it to her will. She could almost make out his face, handsome and smiling as he disappeared. Was it Michael now? No. Please, no.

  The last few witnesses shocked the courtroom back into active interest. A maid from the motel in Bakersfield testified she saw Marianne Murphy in the motel bathroom, chained to the faucets in the bathtub. She had been afraid to come forward, even to tell her boss, because the girl told her to go away, to be afraid of the man, he could hurt her too. Fearfully, she pointed Garrick out.

  Then there was a gardener for the Neidorffs who said he noticed a van parked outside the house, but that he’d seen many vans delivering things before. After seeing it there for three days, he remembered what it said on the side. He told the jury, “Stolte Moving Company.”