Paul Cleave - The Killing Hour

I realize I’m holding my breath. I begin to let it out as I slowly turn a complete circle in my room, spotting new damage as I do so. The DVD player beneath my TV has had the tray snapped off. The display on it has been broken and the play button pried off. A lamp is on the floor, the framework twisted and bent, the bulb shattered, the prongs on the plug wrenched sideways.

Jo waits in the hallway asking me over and over what I’ve done. All this destruction around me. This is my room. My personal space. If I snapped right now, if I lost my mind and went completely berserk, there’d be nothing left in here for me to break.

But I don’t snap. As much as I love my books, my cars, my toys, they’re nothing to what has already happened this week. In the scheme of things all this is nothing. These are just items, materials, things that can be replaced. It will cost me money, but that’s all. I can move on. I cannot say the same for Kathy. I cannot say the same for Luciana. I lean down and turn off the stereo. The CD stops clicking and the hissing disappears and the room becomes eerily silent. Even Jo stops talking. I walk through the destruction back into the hallway. It’s as if a localized earthquake hit my room.

I close the door on everything.

If only I had taken a different route home the other night.

I tell myself not to think this way. I try not to tell myself that Luciana may have found somebody who wasn’t going to help and then kill them. I try not to tell myself any of this, but it’s true. What would have happened if I hadn’t come along? Would another game-show contestant have succeeded where I failed?

“If you didn’t do this, Charlie, then it’s time to go to the police. There has to be plenty of evidence here.”

I open up the door to my bedroom. The curtains here are closed. Everything appears normal. I start to close the door. “The only evidence here is that the place has been trashed. It doesn’t show by who.”

“What’s in the box?” Jo asks.

I push the door back open and I see it now, sitting in the center of my bed, plainly in view. I can only imagine what’s inside. The box makes me uncomfortable in a way I can’t describe. I know that whatever’s inside it will rock my world and shatter what small hope I have left, but if I don’t look then I can still hold on to the hope that it’s empty. It’s the Schrödinger Paradox. Schrödinger’s severed head.

“Charlie?”

“I don’t know what’s in it.”

“The hell you don’t. You kept a souvenir, didn’t you? What is it? A head? A heart?”

“I didn’t, it’s not mine, really, I. . I. .” I bite my lower lip hard enough to draw blood. “Let’s go back to the car. He’ll be back. If he looked for me last night he’ll look for me again tonight.”

“What is it, Charlie? What have you done?”

“Nothing. I promise you. I don’t know what’s in there.”

“We have to call the police. It was already out of hand by the time you came to me, Charlie, and now look how much worse it’s gotten. Think about where we’re going to be this time tomorrow if you don’t go to the police.”

“Let’s go,” I tell her.

“To the police?”

“No. We’re sticking with the plan.”

“Charlie. .”

“You said you’d give me the day,” I tell her.

“Not all of it.”

“I just need a little more time. An hour. Two at the most. We watch the house till midnight.”

“That’s almost six hours away.”

“Then I let you go. I promise.”

“You promise?”

“I just said I promised.”

I close the house up. We head outside. Jo seems happy to leave. I’m happy to leave too. We pile into her car. I back out of the driveway. I drive fifty yards then do a U-turn and park against the curb. The shortest drive of my life. I kill the engine and we wait.

Jo is starting to believe him. Charlie is still being a bastard, and there’s no excuse for what he did to her last night, but it’s really looking like this Cyris fellow exists. Would Charlie have done any of that crazy shit to his own house? She doesn’t think so. She doesn’t think he would kill anybody. And just what in the hell was in that box?

Of course it’s been six months since she last saw him. A lot can happen is six days let alone six months. He’s not behaving like the Charlie she used to know. But she needs to play devil’s advocate here-she needs to follow the idea for a moment that perhaps he is guilty. Saving a body part is a good way of starting up an insanity defense. Which means she’s still in danger.

Either way she’s in danger. Either from Charlie or from Cyris, doesn’t matter whether they’re the same person or not. She needs to stay calm and collect her thoughts because common sense, in theory, beats out insanity any day.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” she says, but she’s not sorry, and she still might be doubting him. She isn’t sure. What she is sure of is that there’s an escape opportunity here. This is what she’s been working toward. Thank God she didn’t blow it back at the motel by trying to cut herself free. She would never have done it in time.

Charlie looks over at her and his face relaxes. “Really? Do you really mean that?”

“I’m also sorry you had to bring me here to convince me. You didn’t have to hurt me, Charlie. I just wish you hadn’t hurt me.”

“I wish that too,” he says. “I’m sorry, Jo, so sorry. I just. .” he says, but he trails off.

“Just didn’t know what to do,” she says for him.

“I think I knew what to do. I just kept doing all the wrong things.”

“Listen, Charlie, we agreed you’d let me go at the end of the day. That you would show me what you needed to, and-”

“I can’t let you go,” he says. “Don’t you see? Cyris is looking for me. And he might be looking for you too.”

“I’ll be safe. I’ll go to the police.”

“And then the police will come looking for me. They’re not going to believe what happened. No, we stick with the plan. And it’s a good plan. It’s your plan. We wait for Cyris to come back. I know he’s been here already, but he won’t know where else to look.”

“Okay,” she says. So that didn’t work. She still has another angle. “So what about this. Cyris left the box behind for a reason, right?”

“I guess, but I have no idea what that reason is.”

“What if he’s planning on calling the police?”

“What?”

“He might be calling the police to tell them to come to your house. An anonymous tip. They’ll come here, find that box, and you’ll look guiltier than ever.”

He shakes his head. “No, they’ll see the house was broken into. They’ll see all that damage. Surely they’ll know it wasn’t me.”

“If you’re that sure, then why don’t you call them yourself?” she asks.

“Shit,” he says again. He puts his hands on the steering wheel and tightens his grip. “So what are you saying?”

“I think you know.”

“We have to go and get the head,” he says.

“How. . how do you know it’s a head?” she asks.

“Jesus,” he says, turning toward her. “What, now you think I’m guilty again?”

“I’m just asking.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “That was just a guess. It could be anything.”

It’s a good answer. She believes him. “You need to hurry,” she says. “It’s already gotten dark. Cyris could show up at any minute, and so could the police.”

“Me? You’re not coming back inside with me?”

“No way in hell am I going back in there, not when there’s a box in there with a head in it, and not when-”

“It might not be a head. In fact it’s probably not. Both women had them still attached.”