Paul Cleave - The Laughterhouse

The beatings in jail came about because the inmates were told he’d raped and killed his daughter. The cops told them that. It was because Caleb had killed a cop. He took what they gave, and the more they gave the more he died inside, and he let that happen. They stripped away his humanity, and when you take that away from a man you’re unleashing a world of possibilities.

He has loaded up on blankets and has filled a bag of food from the fridge and pantry. He spent a few minutes reading news articles on the Internet with his phone, seeing what was already being written about him, only they’re not about him, not specifically. The media is calling him the Gran Reaper on account of the first two victims being old. They mention victim number three, but not by name. No mention of victim number four.

Victim number three. Caleb had strayed from the list and that was a mistake. What if the guy hadn’t been alone? What if there had been kids there? What if one of them had come into the garage? Would he have walked away?

He goes upstairs. Katy and Melanie are in the same bedroom, where he made them wait with the assistance of duct tape and plastic ties. Before tying them up he made them change into warmer clothes, both girls selecting jeans and shirts and jackets. Melanie, a little over two years older than Katy, hasn’t stopped complaining. She has the same hair and the same eyes as her sister, but her face is rounder and meaner.

“This is stupid,” Melanie says. “My hands hurt and the police are going to come and arrest you. And I’m tired.”

“You can sleep later,” he tells her. “But the police aren’t coming.”

“I want to sleep now, and yes they are. And who are you again? You didn’t say.”

“His name is Caleb,” Katy says.

“Don’t be dumb,” Melanie says, looking at her sister. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, who is he exactly.”

“Oh,” Katy says.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he tells them.

“You already have,” Melanie says. “My dad would say you’re deluded. He uses words like that to describe people like you all the time.”

“Shut up.”

“Deluded,” she repeats. “You see that, Katy? I struck a nerve.”

He pulls out the duct tape.

“Don’t make him mad,” Katy says, and starts to cry. “Please don’t hurt us.”

He rips off some tape and puts it across Melanie’s mouth as she twists her head and tries to avoid it. He does the same for Katy too, not prepared to risk her screaming on the way out to the car. He carries them downstairs one at a time and puts them into the backseat.

Then he gets Octavia.

The bedroom has been painted pink, there is a mobile hanging from the ceiling with pictures of unicorns and princesses on it. The baby is asleep. He picks her up and she murmurs. He rests her on his chest so her head is over his shoulder, and bounces her up and down a few times, shushing her and she stops making noises. He carries her gently downstairs. He has taken the car seat out of Stanton’s car and put it into the passenger seat of his own, turning it around so she is facing the seat and not the windshield. He tucks a blanket around her.

The car won’t start.

He keeps turning the key, the engine whining but failing to turn over, making less of an effort with every try. He pushes his foot on the accelerator, he throws his weight backward and forward as if rocking the car will help, but none of it does, and after thirty seconds the only sound the engine makes when he turns the key is a small click.

It’s closing in on five in the morning. Soon the birds will be awake.

Octavia starts to cry.

“Shush,” he says, slowly rocking the seat, but she won’t shush, instead she just cries louder. “Goddamn it,” he says, “I said shush.”

The two girls in the back start fidgeting around. He climbs out of the car, undoes the car seat, carries it inside with the baby still attached, and rests her in the hall. He brings the other two girls inside.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asks. “She hungry?”

The girls don’t answer. They can’t, because of the duct tape.

Damn it. He’s running out of time. He drags the girls into the living room so they don’t have to see their father, which he then hauls out of the trunk a minute later and takes through to the garage. He jams him into the trunk of his own car. He gets the girls into the car too, then grabs a jar of baby food from the kitchen.

“Here,” he says, and shoves a spoonful of food at Octavia’s mouth. She twists her head away, still crying. “Come on,” he tells her, “eat this or I’m going to leave you here,” he says, but of course Octavia is crying too loudly to hear him, and wouldn’t understand him even if she could. He uses his other hand to hold her head, then jams the spoon into her mouth. She sucks at the food, chews at it, then swallows, then cries again. He looks at the duct tape, wondering if it wouldn’t be an easier way of keeping her quiet, and decides that it would be. He peels off a strip but just then the baby burps and goes quiet. She smiles, closes her eyes, then drifts off to sleep all in the space of ten seconds.

He gets her settled into the doctor’s car, then heads back out to his own. He leans in and releases the hand brake. It’s simple to push as the car rolls down the driveway, then becomes difficult when it levels out. He stands inside the driver’s door and twists the wheel and pushes as hard as he can, his knees and hips aching madly, his shoulder sore, but he pushes hard, needing to get it done. The car starts to move. It’s slow but steady, and he pushes it past one house, then another, and the momentum builds and two minutes later he’s put half a dozen homes between his car and the doctor’s place. He doesn’t have the strength or the time to push anymore. A couple of the houses have lights on inside now, but nobody else is on the street. He wipes down the surfaces he’s touched. He’s never been in the backseat but wipes it down anyway. He wants the police to find him, but not yet, and his car breaking down like this complicates things.

He walks back to the garage. Pushes the door opener button and drives out with the nuclear family, minus mom, all jammed into the back of the car. Christ, it’s already after five o’clock, and he’s becoming more certain things are going to take two nights now instead of the one. He starts rubbing his knees, the left one is worse than the right, and as he massages it his hand hurts too. The road is blurrier than it was earlier. The world loses all the sharp edges as the two lanes seem to merge into one, and rubbing at his eyes doesn’t help that much. He’s driving toward the judge’s house. Kill him, then Mrs. Whitby, then head on out to the slaughterhouse to finish it.

He pulls over. Yawns. And closes his eyes for a few seconds, leaning his forehead on the steering wheel. It was always going to be a tough task finishing everything in one night. Impossible even. Ten years ago he would have had the strength. But not now. It’s disappointing, but he always knew it was a possibility. It won’t change the end result, and it’s why he’s killing in the order he chose. The police can’t make the connection. He’s spent hours Googling his victims and doing his homework, and the three he’s killed that matter, none of them ever appear in the same story. After all, it was seventeen years ago-back then the news wasn’t as available online as it is now. Back then there wasn’t even much of an online to begin with. He knows the cops will be working with more than just Internet search engines, they’ll have criminal records and courts transcripts, but all of it is useless until they know where to start looking. James Whitby’s mother-once Caleb cuts her to pieces, that’s when they’ll figure it out.