Paul Melko - The Walls of the Universe

“What’d you do?”

He could have-

“Did you push him?” Casey asked.

Carson lay unmoving at the bottom of the steps. Casey took them two at a time and knelt next to him. She reached tentatively toward his neck. Prime watched as she felt for a pulse.

“Don’t touch him!” he cried.

She turned on him.

“What have you done? What have you done?”

“What do you mean? He was here to hurt us? It was self-defense. He fell!”

“He’s not armed!” Casey whispered shrilly. “And now he’s dead.”

“Dead?” Prime shuddered. Dead?

“You killed a man. You killed Ted Carson, and now the police are going to take you away.”

“No.” Prime scrambled backward until he was up against the table and chairs.

“What am I going to do when you’re gone?”

“He had a knife, didn’t he?” Though as Prime said it, he wasn’t sure. Carson had used it to dig at the door. He’d had it in his hand.

Prime scrambled up. Where was the knife?

There was nothing on their landing. There was nothing next to Carson’s body. Prime descended, and stepped over the body. Was it on the stairs? Was it under the body?

He saw it, then, a glitter of metal under Carson’s leg.

Prime rolled the body over. It was Carson’s car keys.

Prime’s heart thudded. He stood there, desperate, angry, helpless. It was over. He’d ruined it all.

He stared wild-eyed at Casey.

He took a step for the stairs.

“Stop.”

He looked at Casey. She was staring at him with hard eyes.

“Turn around. Grab him under the pits and drag him inside the apartment.”

“What?”

“Do it!”

Prime turned and maneuvered the hulking corpse up the stairs and through their doorway. A trail of slimy blood, mixed with urine, slid over the doorjamb.

“Onto the tile. Don’t leave him on the wood.”

Prime dragged Carson into the kitchen. The blood glimmered red on the gray tile.

Casey returned from the bathroom with a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle of cleaner. She bent down and started scrubbing the floor.

“Take a shower,” she said over her shoulder.

“I can’t-”

“Do it!”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m betting Carson didn’t tell anyone he was coming here,” she said simply. “I’m betting no one heard the racket. And I’m betting on your doing everything I say.”

Prime found himself stripping down to nothing, climbing into the shower, and turning on the hot scalding water. He scrubbed himself clean, rubbing at the dashes and dots of blood that covered his arms and hands.

When he pulled back the shower curtain, his clothes were gone, replaced with a simple white T-shirt and jeans. The apartment was empty except for Carson’s corpse. A note on the fridge said Casey’d be right back.

The apartment smelled of bleach and blood. Prime leaned against the door and stared at the body.

He jumped at the sound of keys in the lock.

Casey stood there.

“Where’s Abby?” Prime asked.

“With my mom,” Casey said.

“Isn’t she suspicious of why she needs to watch Abby at midnight?”

Casey shrugged. “That’s what moms do; they do what needs to be done, and needle their daughters about it for the next month.”

She tossed a bag from Hoffman’s on the kitchen table. Inside was a solid blue shower curtain and more cleaning supplies. The superstore had gone in near the interstate six months earlier, causing consternation among local shopkeepers, but none of them were open twenty-four hours.

Casey handed Prime Carson’s car keys.

“Find his car. Pull it around to our driveway, with the trunk even with the walk.”

Prime nodded.

The car keys were heavy in his hand. Two Hewitt keys adorned the ring, as well as a generic house key. A piece of polished metal proclaimed “Stud” in black metal. There was no remote car lock. Of course Carson would have the most common brand of car in this universe.

Prime ran down the stairs and looked up and down the street. There were dozens of cars lining both sides. A lot of them were Hewitts: Trojans, Tempos, and Zeros, the cheapest cars on the road.

He tried the first one in front of him. The door didn’t open. He tried the next. His fingers caught on the door handle, and he cursed.

A car crossed the street two blocks down, and Prime realized it was a police car. Had the officer looked his way? Would he back around for a look? Prime realized he couldn’t just walk down the street and try every car.

Which car was Carson’s? Prime stepped up onto the sidewalk. He walked slowly down the length of the block. Then back again. His eyes fell on a car with a factory parking-lot sticker, just like his sticker. The key fit; the door opened.

There were open beer bottles on the passenger’s seat. The car smelled of mold. The dashboard was peeling. Prime hoped the car would start. He sat down and tried it.

The car turned over without starting. He pulled back the key, taking his foot off the gas. He didn’t want to flood it. He tried again. Nothing. Once more.

The car started, rumbling to life. Great, he needed a new muffler.

Prime put it into gear. He realized he could run then, leave it all behind. He didn’t have the device, but he knew how to make a new identity. He could be rid of Casey, Abby, and Carson’s body. Run for it.

The car purred as Prime goosed the accelerator. He pulled the car into the driveway of the apartment building, edging the trunk alongside the front path.

He sprinted up the steps. Casey was at the door with the corpse wrapped in the shower curtain.

“Take his feet,” she said. She left him there, walking past the door of their neighbor, listening for any noise. She shook her head. “All clear.”

They dragged him downstairs, certain that at any moment someone would open the door and ask what they were doing. But no, the apartment was silent for once at one o’clock in the morning.

Prime popped the trunk and they stuffed the corpse in among the nudie magazines, spare tire, and bow-hunting equipment.

Casey slammed the trunk, and they stood there, watching the dark windows of their street. Prime saw nothing, heard no one. A long way off, a siren howled.

“Get in; drive,” Casey said.

Prime threw the car in reverse.

“Slow down!” Casey shouted.

“Oh, right.”

“Don’t act stupid now.”

Prime nodded.

“Where to?”

“Your parents.”

“My parents?”

“Just do it.”

Prime nodded, steering the car toward the south end of town. The streets were empty. No one was out on a Thursday night. Findlay was shut down, and not even the police were patrolling.

Prime hoped Carson didn’t have any outstanding tickets on his car. Now was not the time to be pulled over.

Prime rolled down his window as they hit the county roads. Bugs spattered against the windshield. The cold October air cleared the stench from the car. He glanced over at Casey. She was staring straight ahead.

They came to the turnoff toward his parents’ farmhouse.

“Stop here. Don’t pull in.”

Prime pulled off into the gravel. Casey took the keys, opened the trunk, and together they levered the corpse into the grass. They were on the edge of his father’s land, in the patch of trees where Prime had met Johnny Farm Boy the year before.

Casey tossed the keys back at Prime.

“Dump the car in the quarry. Roll down the windows. Pop the trunk. Push it over the edge. Roll it fast enough that it doesn’t snag on the way down.”

Prime looked at her. “Have you been planning this?”

“Of course not!” she said. “But I do read mysteries. Go.”

Prime pulled away and in his rearview mirror he saw Casey dragging Ted Carson’s corpse into the trees. The quarry was right across the road, but the entrance was off Brubaker. Prime had spent a lot of time exploring the quarry; he knew it well.