CRIMINAL CHRISTMAS: A Set of 8 Holiday Suspense Stories, page 66
I cruised along Highway 203 on my way to Carnation, enjoying the scenery as I went. In contrast to the suburban city where I lived, this rural area was peaceful and picturesque with low forested hills all around, full of deciduous trees in all of their bright orange and yellow autumn glory. And though fall was supposed to be the season of death and decay, when all of the leaves finally let go and moved on, it was the time of year when I felt most alive. The vibrant colors and fresh crisp air seemed to awaken something in me. I felt happier now than I had in the summer. Of course, some of my newfound happiness could be attributed to working with Eisenbrey. No. The new project, I told myself, not Eisenbrey.
I passed by several fields with old barns, some with obvious repairs made to them, others in various degrees of dilapidation, all of which had their own beauty as they blended into the country landscape. Out there, I could point a camera in almost any direction and get a photo that would be worthy of display on a postcard. I passed a strawberry farm, making a mental note to return there next summer. The speed limit dropped as I entered the city and then I found myself looking at the shops on either side of the road as I drove through the tiny downtown area of Carnation.
The grade school had just finished for the day and children got into cars or climbed onto their respective school buses, most of them wearing Halloween costumes. Until that moment, I hadn’t even realized it was Halloween. I saw pirates, vampires, zombies and I even spotted a Grim Reaper, none of them frightening. Just innocent children. I wondered what costume Carnation’s own real monster, Thomas Eisenbrey, had worn as a child.
I drove past a hardware store and wondered if he had ever shopped there for the items he later used to kill people.
Turning onto his street, I found the address a few blocks back from the main highway through town. The older house, perhaps built in the 1940s, had a steep pitch to the roof, now covered with a thick carpet of moss. The pale green colored clapboard siding on the house also enshrouded the detached garage. I saw two old cars parked in the yard and would bet neither of them was operational based on the height of the grass around them. A quick glance at the mailbox told me that no Eisenbreys lived there. I hadn’t expected any. It was the Johnsons’ house now, and their priorities did not include yard work or keeping up the place.
I parked across the street and looked at the house for a while, trying to imagine Thomas Eisenbrey living there, wondering if the place had been in a better state of repair back then. Many of the houses nearby looked as though they had been built in the last twenty years, so he likely had few neighbors back then. The large wooded area on the other side of the new homes had probably extended even closer to the Eisenbreys’ house.
I got out of my car and walked up the street a few hundred feet, taking several pictures of the house and yard, wishing I could get some photos of the way it looked when he was here. As I returned to my car I wondered—what the hell could have possibly gone on in that house to create the Hunter?
Chapter 9
Sparks flared from the fire in the corner of the otherwise dark room. The flickering light from the flames danced around the left side of his body as he skulked slowly toward me. Gone were the prison clothes, the plain white T-shirt that I had always seen him in and instead he wore blue jeans and a blue shirt that hung partially open. His hands worked quickly, undoing the rest of the buttons. The warm glow of the fire illuminated his fair skin and caused the dark hair on his chest to glisten.
He came to me, and lay down on top of me. I felt the delicious weight of his body, the pressure of his mouth pressed against mine, the warmth of his skin, and the urgency of his erection as he rubbed it against me. I wanted more. I wanted Eisenbrey.
I found myself moaning and thrashing in my sheets as I awoke.
I lay there in a state of confusion. Had I been sleeping? Getting my bearings I frantically searched around my dark bedroom and then flipped on the lamp next to my bed. He was gone. Had Eisenbrey actually been here in my room? If so, where was he now? I sat up and tried to shake off the feeling. No, he couldn’t have been here, but the dream had seemed so real. My skin still felt as though his body had just been up against it.
I couldn’t understand how a dream could cause such a genuine physical sensation. I trembled, but not from the cold. I pulled my covers up around me because it comforted me, and I marveled at the way my thoughts about this man could make me feel. I was in need.
Chapter 10
November 2nd, 2012
Seeing him as his cell door opened unraveled me. My heart sped, lightheadedness caused me to sway and I clutched the metal folding chair to steady myself. The rational part of my mind told me the vision before me was utterly impossible, and yet—Eisenbrey leaned on the edge of his table, waiting expectantly for me, wearing blue jeans, a blue button up shirt and a huge grin.
“How have you been, darlin’? Did you get a good night’s sleep?” He sounded friendly, cheerful.
I tried to feign casual indifference, but I was honestly taken aback.
He stepped forward and pressed his head against the cell bars, watching me with a knowing expression. “You had a dream about me, didn’t you?” His colder tone sent a chill through me as did his penetrating deep cerulean eyes. He wasn’t just throwing it out there, he actually knew. But how could he know? “Tell me, Rebecca, what did you do when you woke up?”
I put out the fire. In fact, my fantasies about him had kept me going for about forty-five minutes before I finally knocked it off and went back to sleep. I didn’t even need to look at my favorite pic of him anymore. I had every pixel of that image of him, gazing longingly at me through those bars, memorized, competing with the sinister smile he now wore as his eyes bore into mine. My heartbeat increased and adrenaline surged into my bloodstream—a panic reaction I told myself, and tried to brush it off. There was no need to get upset about this small thing. I had to remind myself it was impossible for him to see inside my head. I eyed him warily as I attempted to dismiss my train of thought. “You’re not wearing your usual clothes,” I said in measured tones.
“Yeah, Lutz got me some blues today. I like these clothes better. The color sets off my eyes,” he remarked as he adjusted his collar.
I nodded silently in agreement.
“This is what they used to issue to the prisoners. I should be able to keep them until DiMaggio gets back. He won’t let me have anything but the khaki and white. That guy can be such a bitch.” Eisenbrey chuckled and shook his head. By all appearances he wasn’t very concerned about DiMaggio.
“It’s hot in here, don’t you think?” Eisenbrey slowly unbuttoned the blue shirt and allowed it to hang open, exposing his chest. He leaned back on his bed putting his feet up and hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans above the front pockets. The positioning of his hands drew my attention to the bulge behind his zipper.
“Goddamn,” I muttered under my breath. I tried to look at my notes for today’s interview but my eyes refused to be torn from the wickedly delicious sight before me.
Eisenbrey smiled, apparently pleased by the reaction he elicited from me. “Hmm, if you don’t want to talk about what you did after that dream, what would you like to talk about?”
Momentarily flustered, I couldn’t remember what I had intended to ask during our visit today. “Uh, I’ll just start the recorder,” I stammered, setting the device on the floor next to the bars and activating it. I consulted my notes and found my bearings. “Let’s see, I have some questions about your education. Did you graduate from high school?”
“Yes.” His smile started to disappear and I felt a foreboding.
“Class of ’85?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Did you go to college or a trade school of any kind?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Eisenbrey glared at me as he enunciated each word slowly and with deliberation, “I pursued other interests.”
“Okay. Have you ever had your I.Q. tested?”
“No.” There was a hard quality to his response that set off an alarm in me, but I didn’t seem to be able to stop myself from plunging forward regardless.
“Would you be willing to take an I.Q. test if I could arrange it?”
His body became remarkably still, reminiscent of an ice statue, as he stared at me for several moments until I began to wonder if he had understood me. Then he said, “Look, Rebecca, I know all of my goddamned A-B-C’s. Would you like to hear?”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said. I could feel my face flushing. I took the page with the sampling of test questions that I was about to ask him and slipped it under my stack of papers.
He jumped up from his bed and grabbed onto the bars of his cell, his eyes full of menace. The muscles in his chest and abdomen flexed as his fingers clutched the steel. “Of course it isn’t necessary, and it isn’t necessary for me to prove my intellect to you either. Where the hell do you get off asking me to do that?” he practically shouted at me.
“Okay, I’m sorry,” I said, holding up my hands in a placating gesture.
“That fucking psychiatrist wanted to test me too but I told him to sit and spin. If you want to know how intelligent I am, you could just ask for a copy of my school transcripts.” He paused, pondering that for a moment, and then added, “Except the only thing that would tell you is that I wasn’t interested in school.” He shook his head and sighed. “Are you concerned that I’m not smart enough for you?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Not at all.”
“Well then why did you ask me that? What were you hoping to get?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. But I did get something, the sense that I was in peril while he was angry with me, and it exhilarated me.
“Don’t do it again,” he warned. “I’m not making myself available to you so you can test or study me. Bars or no bars, I’m no fucking lab rat. I have allowed you to come here so you can make a record of my life story.”
As he sat back down on his bed and regarded me, my eyes wandered back to his chest. Why did the bastard have to sit there with his shirt open? Seeing this much of him unnerved and distracted me. How was I supposed to stay calm, cool and collected during our interview while I daydreamed about pressing my face against his chest? I wondered if his hair would feel coarse or soft and what his scent was like; I was always too far away to tell.
“Take your hair out of that ponytail,” he demanded in a quiet voice.
“What? Why?” I sputtered.
“Because I want to see what you look like with your hair down. It’ll give me something to think about later.”
So he did think about me after I left. It was nice to have that question answered. And I found that I liked his answer. “Okay.” I removed the band and fluffed my hair a little.
“Hmm. Now put it back up.”
Irritation swelled up in me that he felt he could order me around. The man’s arrogance knew no bounds, yet a part of me enjoyed the way he took charge. I wanted him to be the alpha male. “Did it ever occur to you that your behavior might be offensive to me?” I snapped as I wrapped the band around my hair again.
“Are you here to write a book on etiquette?” He paused and glowered at me until I looked away from him. “I didn’t think so.”
I sighed, disgusted with myself. I had allowed him to have too much control over the interview. I needed to get something accomplished. I hadn’t driven all the way out here just so he could screw with me. “Let’s talk about you. Tell me, Tom, how many times have you killed?”
“Hey, I told you, it’s Mr. Eisenbrey to you,” he grumbled.
“Fuck you,” I said. “I’m calling you Tom.” Danger swirled around me as I said it and I felt an unmistakable thrill at having spoken like that to a creature so deadly, something I would never have done if not for the protection of the formidable steel barrier between us.
Eisenbrey sat up straight and gawked at me, then seemed perplexed as I managed to hold his steady gaze for several moments without flinching. He finally settled back against the wall again and answered my question. “Oh hell, I couldn’t even guess how many animals I’ve killed.”
“How many people have you killed?”
“Ah-ah-ah.” He wagged his finger at me. “You promised that you would be a good girl and not ask me anything that could get me in any further Dutch with the law. Remember what I said about not burning any bridges.”
“Yes, but I’m supposed to be writing a book about a bad boy. I want to know just how bad you are.”
Tom leaned forward, his elbows rested on his knees and he pressed steepled fingers against his chin. As he studied me I felt the tension between us ratchet up a few notches. “I don’t think you really do.”
Flustered, I glanced at my notes again and then said, “Tell me about the incident with the guard.”
“Which one?”
“Is there more than one?”
“Okay,” he relented. “I suppose there was one guard that actually got injured. The other stuff was just bullshit.”
“The attack on Wilson Stills is what I want to hear about. You bit him. I want to know why. Is biting a compulsion? Do you have some kind of fantasy about being a vampire?” It was meant as a serious question, but that had no bearing on his reaction.
Eisenbrey fell back on his bed and crumpled into a fit of boisterous laughter that seemed to shake his entire body and rendered him completely unable to respond. The sound of his guffaws bounced off of the walls of the otherwise silent cement hallway, slicing through the bleak atmosphere of death row.
I cast a self-conscious glance toward the control room and found the guard standing in the window, watching me. I crossed my legs and waited patiently for Eisenbrey’s fit to subside, feeling like a complete idiot. I took that moment to flip through my notes and questions for the day. Eventually he seemed to compose himself. He sat back up on the edge of his bed and sighed heavily.
“Tom,” I started, but then I was interrupted by a fresh wave of raucous laughter. “I’m glad you find me so hilarious,” I said tersely.
“Me too, sugar. God knows there’s precious little to laugh about in this place,” he said as he shook his head and then pushed his dark hair back from his face.
That was a sobering thought, and it lessened the irritation I felt at being the subject of his amusement. After several moments he finally quieted, but then another tenacious giggle escaped him and I lost my patience.
“Oh, for chrissakes! Settle down! I have to ask you this stuff. I need to understand what motivates you.”
“Fine, now you know something that motivates me to laugh my ass off. You’ve been reading too many of those Twilight books.”
“Okay, I’ll take that as a ‘no’ to the vampire ideation, but what about my other question. Is it a compulsion?”
“No, I don’t feel compelled to bite people. I’m just not squeamish about doing that if it serves my goal. Teeth can come in handy in the absence of other weapons and getting bitten hurts like a motherfucker.”
“Have you ever been bitten?”
“Of course I have; I had a brother and once upon a time we were children.”
“Did remembering that make you want to bite the guard and the other law enforcement personnel?” A vision of the massive scar on Scanlon’s neck flashed through my head, unbidden.
“Rebecca,” he said, and then sighed wearily. “Do you want to hear that I had a fucked up childhood and that it molded me into who I am today? The psychiatrists have already barked up that tree. Maybe parts of it were bad, but I don’t have any memory that stands out that involves biting. I didn’t particularly like to bite those fellas. Like I said, it was just one of the methods at my disposal for getting what I wanted, so I did it.”
“What did you want from Stills?”
“I wanted to get even with the little fucker.”
“For what?”
“He insulted me about seven months earlier. It didn’t set well with me. I decided that I would do something to him later. I was friendly with him for a while. I let him think that things were okay between us so he would relax around me. Then, one day when he came and put me in the handcuffs and entered my cell, I got him. In retrospect, it wasn’t my brightest move to do that while I was handcuffed. I wasn’t able to cover my head when they started beating me with their batons, but then I’m always restrained when one of the guards is in an enclosed area with me.”
“You waited seven months? And you were angry with him that whole time?”
Eisenbrey nodded.
“Why so long? Was that your first opportunity?”
“No. He came in my cell at least a couple times a week. I was just waiting for the right time. That’s important to me, to wait until it feels right to attack.”
“Why is that?”
“So I will…” he paused a few seconds as he searched for the right words, “enjoy it fully.”
“What do you mean? Do you get sexually aroused when you kill?”
“Sometimes, but everything isn’t about sex. There’s a much bigger desire that I need to satisfy. I want to conquer. I want complete control, and what’s more complete than murder? The ultimate power trip. Make no mistake; there is nothing in this world that I love more than taking a human life. I need to kill.” He shrugged. “That’s who I am, and I sure as shit am not going to apologize for it.”
I was surprised by his blatant admission, amazed that he had opened up to me like that.
“You know it’s odd, I haven’t seen Stills since then. He must not want to work with me anymore.” Eisenbrey smiled fondly and he said, “Why do you look so surprised? Seven months isn’t a long time; I waited ten years to get even with those hunters.” His smile vanished and iciness crept into his eyes. He was feeling something different just then, something far darker than he had felt while remembering the guard. I could feel the vice-grip of tension surround me. I couldn’t tell if it radiated from him or if my mind reacted to what I knew him to be, but I was grateful for the bars that separated us.
