David Jackson - The Helper

And in her apartment she is screaming at her husband and pointing back the way she came and trying to make the uncomprehending fool appreciate that while she is prepared to change light bulbs in the dark, and do a lot of other things besides, the nature of which she is not about to go into just now but which they need to discuss at some point, she is absolutely not willing to tackle apparitions of the type she has just encountered in the basement. She draws the line at that one. And so what is he going to do about it? Huh? Huh?

She is almost surprised when her husband shuts off the television and gets up from his chair. He looks solemn, concerned. It seems as though he is finally going to take decisive action for once. He assumes the bearing of a tribal chief, about to take part in a duel to the death to defend his loved ones. She experiences a sense of pride swelling in her bosom.

Her bosom deflates when she sees him walk in the wrong direction, toward the bedroom.

She starts to yell at him again. She works herself up into a frenzy, throwing at him every sharp spear of insult she can think of. She threatens to leave him. Worse, she threatens to tell all their friends how bad he is in bed.

She clams up when he returns from the bedroom. She is silent because she has seen that he is holding an industrial-sized flashlight. Not like the puny plastic one he gave her earlier. This one is muscular. It looks capable of lighting up a whole football stadium. A part of her wants to know why he couldn’t be bothered to dig it out for her before she went down to the basement, but she suppresses it. Instead, she watches while her husband steps into the kitchen area and takes the large meat cleaver from its hook on the wall.

Now she knows he means business. There is a boldness to him, a meanness even, that she has not seen in a long time. And as she follows him out of the apartment she experiences a tingling she thought was lost to her forever.

Together they descend the staircase to the basement. At the door to the laundry room they pause. Mr Li pushes open the door and flicks on his flashlight. A cone of light punches through to the far wall. As he plays it over the interior of the room, long fingers of shadow angle and stretch away from them. Mrs Li taps her husband on the shoulder and points in the direction of the washing machine. They start toward it.

Something crunches underfoot. Mr Li flicks the beam downward. He shifts his boot, and the light glints off the myriad fragments of glass from a pair of crushed spectacles. He gives his wife a puzzled glance, then presses on into the room.

Mr Li finds the mountain of washing and keeps the beam focused on it, as steadily as he can manage. There is no movement from the bundle. No sound either. Mrs Li is beginning to wonder if her imagination was playing tricks on her. She believes that her husband will bury his meat cleaver in her skull if that turns out to be the case.

Mr Li steps closer and closer. He lifts his foot and presses it gingerly into the pile. Mrs Li holds her breath. She almost expects a hand to dart out and grab her husband by the ankle. In which event she is out of here again.

Mr Li tries once more. This time he aims a swift strong kick into the center of the mass. His foot strikes something solid and there is a muffled cry. He leaps away, calls his wife to come closer. She has no desire to go anywhere near that thing, whatever it is, but her man is insistent. She is almost crying when he hands her the flashlight and tells her to keep it trained on their target.

Her hand shakes, but she does as she is told. Soft murmurs of fear bubble from her lips as she watches her husband start to pull off the sheets and garments forming the pile. Each time he yanks something away, he takes a leap backward, his cleaver at the ready to strike down whatever is lurking here. Mrs Li thinks she is going to pee herself any moment now.

And then it comes into view. It’s a man. His arms and legs are tied with cord, and there is a cloth bag over his head. Duct tape is wound tightly around the bag at the point where the man’s mouth should be.

Mrs Li’s fear suddenly changes its focus. This man could be suffocating here.

She cries at her husband to remove the bag. He looks at her, then back at the trussed figure. Keeping his cleaver at the ready, he reaches down with his other hand and snatches at the bag.

When Mrs Li sees what caused her to worry so much, what caused her to rant and curse, what caused her almost to have a heart attack, she wants to seize the cleaver from her open-mouthed husband and separate the red-headed lunatic’s head from his scrawny shoulders.

The first call comes in just as Doyle is preparing to leave for work.

‘Hello?’

‘D-Detective Doyle? It’s me. G-G-Gonzo.’

‘Gonzo? What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘You promise you won’t be m-mad?’

‘Gonzo, I’m not promising anything. Just tell me what the fuck this is about.’

‘I. . the girl. Tabitha. Sh-she’s gone.’

‘Gone? What do you mean, gone? Gone where?’

‘I don’t know. I was downstairs. It wasn’t my fault. When I got back up here-’

‘Gonzo. Stay there, okay? I’m coming right over.’

‘O-okay, but it wasn’t-’

Doyle doesn’t wait to hear the excuses. He ends the call and then grabs his jacket. In the hallway he meets Rachel coming the other way.

‘Gotta go,’ he says.

She raises an eyebrow. ‘Who’s your date?’

Doyle doesn’t answer. He stops only long enough to grant his wife a peck on the cheek, and then he’s out of the apartment and clattering down the staircase. When he gets outside, he races for his car and jumps behind the wheel.

That’s when he gets the second call.

The voice says, ‘Cal? It’s Jay. I know you’re not on duty yet, but I thought you should hear this.’

Doyle feels the dread build in the pit of his stomach.

‘Hear what, Jay?’

Holden pauses. ‘This is fucking crazy, man. I can’t even believe this myself. But with all the weird stuff you’ve been saying about a serial killer. .’

‘Spit it out, Jay.’

Another pause. ‘He came back. Whoever whacked Helena Colquitt, he came back and got the other one.’

Doyle’s mouth is suddenly very dry. He finds it a struggle to get his words out.

‘The other one? What do you mean?’

But he knows precisely what he means. He just can’t bring himself to accept it.

‘The roomie. Tabitha Peyton. He came back, got her too. Weird thing is, he used exactly the same MO. She’s in the bathtub, legs over the side. Exactly the same. Crazy.’

Doyle stares out of his grimy windshield. This conversation is too surreal. It can’t be happening. He saw Tabitha last night. He spoke to her this morning. She was safe. She was alive. How could things have gone so drastically wrong in the space of a couple of hours?

‘Cal? You there, man?’

Doyle hears his own voice speaking. He thinks it sounds surprisingly calm and level. And yet it seems detached from him, as though he is listening to somebody else.

‘Thanks for letting me know, Jay. I’ll come straight over.’

He hangs up and continues to stare out into the street. Ahead, a woman is walking toward him with her dog. Nice day for a walk, he thinks. This is what spring is made for. Walking. Enjoying the first signs of sun, of growth. Of life.

And then it hits him. A wave of grief and rage.

He says one word. No .

But it’s not a simple quiet utterance. It’s a long drawn-out syllable that is hurled from his mouth with a force that feels capable of shattering his windshield.

Outside, the woman turns her dog and quickens her pace in the opposite direction.

It takes a frustratingly long time to get there.