Wrath White - The Resurrectionist

“Detectives?” Another overweight nurse, this one wearing light green hospital scrubs instead of the traditional nursing uniform, approached and began shaking hands even before she’d introduced herself. She was young and pretty, the kind of pretty that would have been gorgeous minus forty or fifty pounds. Sarah wondered how anyone in the health-care field could allow their own body to fall into such disrepair, but obesity seemed to be an occupational habit in this profession. She shook the woman’s hand and smiled, chiding herself for her cattiness.

“I’m Alice Douglass. I’m Dorothy’s nurse. She’s in the common area right now watching television with some of our other guests.”

“Guests” was apparently the PC term for patients.

The nurse shook Detective Torres’s hand and he practically drooled all over himself. His smile was wider and more genuine than any Sarah had ever seen on his face since making his acquaintance. He obviously liked big girls.

“Detective Mike Torres, ma’am.” He held on to her hand a moment longer than necessary and then winked at her when he released it. She smiled and blushed and when she turned around to lead them to Dorothy Madigan she put a little extra swish in her hips. Sarah looked over at Detective Lassiter and they both rolled their eyes.

Sarah, Josh, and the detectives all marched down the hall following the nurse who was still walking with a pronounced switch in her hips that sent ripples through her formidably sized buttocks. Detective Torres was smiling like he’d just hit the Megabucks jackpot.

They walked into the dayroom and the plump nurse escorted them to a woman with long dark hair sitting in the corner of the room watching a game of chess and a soap opera on the big-screen TV in the center of the room simultaneously. As they approached the woman, Sarah began to make out more of her features, or what was left of them. The pallid, mottled skin on her face and neck was wrinkled and shriveled like the skin of a raisin. Her lips had been completely burned off and despite the best attempts of a plastic surgeon to rebuild them, her mouth was still little more than a gash in her face. Her nose had nearly melted away, leaving two small holes in the center of her face where her nostrils had been, giving her an almost reptilian appearance. Both of her ears were all but gone, merely shriveled flaps of skin and cartilage above her ear canals, which were now just two holes in the side of her head. Her arms and hands had likewise shriveled under the same intense heat that had taken her facial features. Her hands were gnarled like crow’s feet and her left hand was missing all but two fingers. Sarah remembered the beautiful woman she had seen in the picture Harry kept in his pocket. That woman was completely gone now.

“Dorothy? These people are from the police department. They’re here to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?”

Dorothy looked them over. She paused first at Harry, giving him a wan smile and a nod. Then she stared at Sarah, looking her over from head to toe. Even with so much of her face destroyed, Sarah could see the distress in Dorothy’s expression. The woman turned back to look at Harry with eyes filling rapidly with tears.

“He’s at it again isn’t he? He’s doing it to her? Now do you believe me?”

Her voice was surprisingly calm and level. Not the disjointed, semiarticulate rant she had been expecting. Her voice was low and raspy as if she’d been smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey for decades. It didn’t match the woman Sarah had seen in the photograph. It was a sultry, bluesy voice, incongruous with the tragically disfigured woman sitting in the dayroom of a mental hospital.

“I’m sorry, Dorothy. I wanted to believe you. You know that. I tried to keep the case open as long as I could.”

“I know, Harry. You were great even after this.”

She gestured toward the scars on her face and the countless more hidden beneath her clothing. Sarah knelt beside Dorothy’s chair and stuck out her hand.

“My name is Sarah Lincoln. Dale McCarthy lives across the street from me. He’s been breaking into my home every night since he moved in and raping and murdering me and my husband, Josh. We’re going to catch him and we’re going to kill him.”

Dorothy stared down at Sarah’s hand and reached out for it with her good hand.

She shook hands firmly, then looked up at the other two detectives.

“Who are they?”

“Detectives Trina Lassiter and Mike Torres.”

“Detectives? Why? How? How did you make them believe?”

“I have a video.”

The woman’s eyes widened.

“You-you have a video? I want to see it. Can I see it? What’s on it?”

“It shows Dale breaking into their house, clubbing Sarah and Josh in the head with a hammer, raping them both, and then stabbing them both to death. Then he apparently resuscitated them both or resurrected them.”

“Both of you?”

Dorothy looked at Josh, who looked away.

“How? I mean, how did he bring them back to life? How does he do it?”

“He breathed into their mouths like he was doing pulmonary resuscitation, mouth-to-mouth, and they both just healed up. Their wounds went away and they were alive again.”

“You have that on tape? All of it?”

“Yes. It’s all on tape.”

“But he got away. He’s still out there?”

“Yes.”

“So, why are you here then? He’s not here is he?”

Dorothy looked around. Her eyes widened in panic and she tried to lift herself from her chair. Harry put his hand on her shoulder and eased her back into her chair.

“No. He’s not here. I just wanted you to know that I was wrong and that I’m sorry and I’m going to make it right. I’m going to catch him. I’m going to finally put a stop to this.”

“Can I ask you a question, Dorothy?”

Dorothy looked down at Sarah, who was still crouched beside her chair.

“Yes?”

“What did he do to you?”

“I don’t remember. I can’t remember hardly any of it. I would wake up with these pictures in my head, these terrible images of being raped, being stabbed, being skinned alive. Then they would just go away and I wouldn’t be able to remember anything. I would walk around all day feeling violated and wounded but not knowing why. I was terrified, especially when I would see Dale at work. Then I started keeping a dream diary. I would write down everything I could remember as soon as I woke up. Some of the things were…they were just unimaginable. I would have never thought anyone capable…it was inhuman some of the things I dreamed. Then one night I put a tape recorder under my bed and I caught it all on tape. It was just the audio but I had written it down that morning too. I wrote that he had skinned me alive and that’s what I heard on the tape. I heard myself screaming, I heard the sound of flesh and skin tearing. And I heard him laughing.”

Sarah didn’t know what to say. She didn’t think anything could have been worse than what she’d seen on that tape but the tape had been silent. She couldn’t imagine what it must have sounded like. She couldn’t imagine hearing herself being skinned alive and remembering it.

“That’s terrible. My God.”

“It’s in the past now. Or at least it was until you five walked in here.”

“I’m sorry. I really am. I didn’t mean to make you relive all of that.”

“Like I said, it’s all in the past now.”

Sarah wondered if she should ask the next question. She tried to think of how to phrase it or if she should ask it all. She knew that it would worry her if she didn’t.

“Do you mind if I ask you one more question?”

Dorothy looked fearful. She was still recomposing herself from the last question. She took a long, deep breath and blew it out slowly.