Bryan Smith - Soultaker

He almost smiled. A small twinge of that aching desperation returned.

Such a fine euphemism. So delicate. So thoroughly removed from the truth of the situation.

The “mess” moaned again.

Raymond popped open the trunk and got out of the car. There was no conscious decision involved with this. Instinct was guiding him. Instinct would enable him to do what needed doing without having to think about it. And that was good. Better than good. It was like a gift from the gods. Because what needed doing was so overwhelmingly awful. It was vile and despicable, an act normally committed only by the most depraved. What could be worse than the cold-blooded murder of a helpless human being?

Shit.

He was thinking again and that would only get him in trouble. It would slow him down, and the sooner this terrible thing was done, the better. So much was at stake. Cindy was just one girl. The fates of hundreds more young people hung in the balance.

The first thing to do was shed some light on the situation. It was full daylight outside, but the garage-door windows were small and dusty. He didn’t want to see Cindy’s twisted and broken limbs again, but there was nothing for it. He would need to see clearly to get this done fast and with some degree of mercy. So he found the light switch and flipped it. The overhead fluorescent lights flickered and came on, bathing the interior of the garage in a harsh glare. Patricia’s sleek black Jaguar gleamed in the space next to his Lexus. Patricia, whose body was moldering in the hole Penelope had forced him to dig out back during the night. He felt another sharp pang of loss, but pushed the emotion away, into a remote corner of his psyche. One day he might let it out again. And on that day he would allow himself to experience the full spectrum of pain, regret, and loss.

If, of course, he lived long enough.

He moved to the rear of the Lexus and lifted open the trunk lid.

Cindy’s face was pressed against the trunk floor. She flinched at the sudden light and lifted her head to look at him. Her face was red and shiny with sweat. Her legs looked as if they had been worked over by a couple of especially sadistic mafia enforcers. No, that was a movie thing. Mere fancy. Allowing instinct to guide him was all well and good, but he would not turn away from truth. Her legs were broken bones sheathed in trembling flesh. And this had happened because he’d been careless with the window. Because he’d driven her at high speed straight into a fucking telephone pole.

She lifted a shaking hand toward him. Her class ring glittered as the light struck it.

“Please…” she said. “Please…help me…it…hurts…”

Raymond sighed.

I can do this.

Cindy moaned some more and sobbed softly.

Raymond again gave himself a mental prod. This needed doing. And now, not later. In theory, it could be done easily enough. He could find something from the workbench to finish her off. It was filled with a number of things that could accomplish the grim task efficiently enough. But he didn’t move. He stood there and stared at the girl. Memories from the last few years taunted him. Cindy had been a star at Rockville, existing at a rarefied level of popularity known only to a tiny elite. Girls like her didn’t come along every year. Maybe once or twice a decade a student with that special combination of beauty, brains, and personality graced the halls of Rockville High. She’d really been something special. What he had to do was a crime in more ways than one.

She was looking at him again. For the first time, he saw more than pain in her eyes. They were clear and focused. She was analyzing him. Looking for an angle. “You can’t kill me.”

Raymond blinked. “I…”

She shifted again and a fresh jolt of agony made her cry out. Then her eyes were on him again, hard and unflinching. “She’ll know. She’s inside me, and she’ll fucking know. And she’ll come get you. Make you fucking pay.”

Raymond swallowed hard and stared at her. The fierce conviction evident in her eyes made him waver for a moment. Maybe Cindy was right. Maybe Lamia would come for him if he killed the broken golden girl. But instinct told him otherwise. Lamia wouldn’t have put her on his tail in the first place if she was really all knowing and all seeing. A theory had been formulating quietly in his subconsciousness and now it surged to the surface.

Lamia was powerful. Extremely. Of that he had no doubt at all. She was something very old. Something not human. A force of nature beyond the ability of men to comprehend. But she was not the goddess she claimed to be. She was instead a magnificent manipulator. She displayed her admittedly impressive abilities only when it suited her. When it benefited her. She terrorized people into following her, bullied them into believing she controlled everyone and everything. Well, maybe she could control one person at a time. Maybe two or three. Four or five. Maybe more. But nothing close to everyone in town. Yet he understood why her followers believed she could. Until today he had believed it, too.

Cindy squinted at him. “Whatever you’re thinking is wrong.”

Raymond wiped sweat from his brow. “I’m sorry, Cindy, but I don’t think so.”

Cindy sneered. “You’re dead. Fucking dead. You’ll see. Lamia will fix me and I’ll dance on your fucking grave.”

Raymond opened his mouth to respond, but the words never made it out.

The door to the anteroom flew open and banged against the wall. Raymond’s eyes went wide as Penelope strutted down the stairs and into the garage. She wore a tight, see-through white blouse and a beige miniskirt that revealed almost everything. It was not normal workday attire, but as Penelope had informed him before leaving for work this morning all the normal rules had been suspended. She could do whatever she wanted and no one would lift a finger to stop her. She was drunk on what she saw as her elevated new station in life. Lamia had fooled her as effectively as she’d fooled anyone.

She saw Raymond and scowled. “There you are! Where the fuck have you been, Raymond? Why didn’t you show up for work this morning? I told you-”

Then she was standing next to him and looking down at the trunk. “My God…” She looked at him. “What have you done?”

Raymond’s emotions were complex in that moment, a mixture of guilt, terror at being caught, and self-directed anger at allowing the situation to slip out of his control.

“Penelope…” The plaintive, strained tone returned to Cindy’s voice. “Please help me. He kidnapped me. I think he was going to rape me.”

Penelope chortled. “Oh, please. Raymond likes a bit of slap and tickle, but he doesn’t have the cojones for hard-core stuff.” She looked at Raymond again. “What really happened?”

Raymond felt deflated. He’d been caught. Found out. It was all over. There was even a kind of relief in knowing he wouldn’t have to make like some kind of tweed-wearing Rambo. “It was an accident. She came after me.”

“An accident, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Penelope smirked. “I can see that, I guess. And you brought her here, not knowing what else to do. Figured you’d finish her off in private and…then what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course not.” She slapped him. “That’s for being such a fucking pussy. You expect me to believe you would’ve offed this chick while she was still awake and talking to you?”

Raymond was silent. He didn’t have an answer for that.

Cindy let out another little cry of pain. “Penelope…please…”

“Shut up.”

Penelope spun on her heel and stalked toward the workbench. There was a clank of metal as she sifted through the various implements there. When she returned, a long iron spike was gripped in her right fist. It was a rusty thing, something Raymond had found in the yard years ago after construction was finished on the house.