The Boulevard Monster, page 19
I moved the hairs away from her nose and touched her cheek. “I’m sorry, Bri,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
When Luther cackled, I snapped my head and saw him standing over me, staring down at me. The birds were still slamming into the kitchen window, and it was cracking.
Luther slowly knelt on top of me. “You had it so good, Seth. I gave you the opportunity of a lifetime, and you blew it.”
“You ruined me,” I said. “You forced me to turn into a monster.”
“I forced you to become a man who could take care of his family. Better his family.” He tapped his own chest. “I gave you the opportunity the world wouldn’t. And what did you give me in return?”
“I can’t live the way you want me to live.”
“You betrayed me.” He lowered his face to within an inch of mine. His breath smelled of copper and lavender, blood and spring. “I thought you would be different. I thought you understood. I thought we could be friends.”
“I understand as well as any sane human ever will. You’re a monster, and part of me does feel sorry for you. But a larger part of me hates everything you stand for. You don’t have to live the way you live. Kill the way you kill. You could use your abilities for so much more.”
Enraged, Luther leaned over and took a chunk of flesh out of my shoulder. I put my hands on either side of his head but couldn’t pry him loose. When he rose up, he met eyes with me and spit the chunk at my face. “I’m going to make this nice and long. Even after you die, you’ll hurt from my wrath.”
He moved forward as if he were about to kiss me, but instead sunk his teeth into my left cheek, a few inches from the corner of my mouth. I howled in pain and began pummeling him in the ribs with my fists, but it didn’t seem to faze him. He spat a small chunk of my cheek at Brianne this time, then bit down on my collar bone and began sucking.
I turned my head toward Brianne. I didn’t care if I died, but I couldn’t leave her here with him. Leave our baby vulnerable to Luther’s sordid desires. God knows what he’d do to a soft, supple, fresh….no…no…I can’t go there. Holy shit, I can’t go there.
I gathered all the strength I could, reared back, and punched him in the head. He rose up and sneered at me with my warm blood on his lips and teeth. In the distance, I could hear bird’s slamming into other windows in the house. Possibly the front and back doors, too. Luther backhanded me hard enough to momentarily knock me out.
When I came to, he was sucking on my collar bone again. I turned my head and looked at Brianne. Wanting to feel her skin one more time before I died, I slid my hand across the floor toward her face and felt a large shard of glass, a piece of one of the glasses that had been on the table. I squeezed my hand around the shard hard enough to cut my palm, then in an arcing motion, rammed it into Luther’s neck.
Surprised, he shot upright and brought his hand up to the glass as I rammed it deeper into his neck with the palm of my hand. He toppled off of me, wide-eyed and grasping for the shard. The kitchen window finally shattered and birds swarmed in as I scrabbled backwards toward the kitchen sink. I quickly retrieved a knife from a drawer, ran at Luther, and stabbed him in the chest over and over and over. I stabbed him twenty good times as blue jays attacked me, pecking at my arms and head and back.
The glow in Luther’s eyes faded as his pupils dilated, eclipsing the piercing blue iris. Continually swatting at the attacking birds, I watched him until his chest stopped heaving. Then—I know this will sound grotesque, but I promised myself I’d tell everything, tell the truth—I grabbed his hair to hold his head steady and sawed off his head. I had to make sure he was dead, had to assure he couldn’t hurt Brianne or Sera or the baby ever again.
When I finished, I rolled Brianne onto her back to make sure she was still breathing and there was no blood or moisture between her legs. As I checked her, some of the bird’s latched onto Luther’s hair and lifted his head into the air. I jumped up and grabbed it before they reached the kitchen window, pried it away from them, ran to the garage, slammed and locked the door.
I dropped the head on the cement floor, and as I doused it with gasoline and set it on fire, birds started slamming into the windows lining the top of the garage door and the birds inside the house started slamming into the locked door leading into the garage. I watched Luther’s hair disappear and his skin melt and his eyes swell and blacken. When the smoke was too thick for me to breathe easily or see clearly, I opened the garage door. Five or six blue jays swooped in and grabbed what remained of the smoldering head with their talons and flew back out, some of their feathers catching fire as they went.
I made my way back into the kitchen just in time to see Luther’s body being dragged out of the kitchen window by twenty or thirty blue jays. They had him by the pants and shirt and skin—whatever they could get their beaks or talons on. After they had him out in an open area in the backyard, they lifted him off the ground high enough the clear the fence and trees and then flew away, headed toward the open plains behind the house.
I had no idea where they were taking him, and I didn’t care. I only cared about Brianne. I lifted her off the ground and carried her to the stolen Camry. She was moaning when I belted her into the passenger seat. I rubbed her cheeks and tried to talk to her for a moment, but she only moaned. I held my hand on her belly, begging God for a sign. Finally, thankfully, after a lifetime of anxiety had looped through my body and was starting a second lap, I felt the baby jerk or kick or something. He was alive.
I kissed Brianne’s forehead, and then ran inside and grabbed the 9MM and my lucky Rangers hat. On my way back to the car, I also grabbed Brianne’s laptop off the coffee table.
I noticed a couple of blue jays trailing us on the way to Mercy General despite the light rain that had started falling from the overcast sky. I talked to Brianne as I drove, trying to get her to respond, to open her eyes, to tell me she was okay. She occasionally moaned, but she never moved or regained consciousness.
I parked in the drop-off/pick-up area, scooped Brianne out of the car and hurried inside. The second the sliding glass doors parted, a nurse sprinted toward us with a wheel chair. She paused a few feet in front of us and looked me up and down, obviously taken back by my appearance. I looked like I’d just stepped out of a zombie movie. I was slick with sweat, had swollen lips and eyes, chunks of flesh missing from my cheeks and arm, peck marks that looked like bloody chicken pocks all over my arms and neck, and blood—Luther’s and my own—all over my clothes and body. And I was carrying an unconscious woman who was eight months pregnant.
I placed Brianne in the wheel chair and took a step back.
“What happened to her?” the nurse asked.
“She fell and hit her head,” I replied. My voice sounded weak, untrustworthy, pathetic and guilty. I could feel all the eyes in the waiting room on me, scrutinizing me. One lady in a nearby chair held up her cell phone and snapped a picture. “I haven’t been able to wake her,” I said. “But she’s breathing and moaning. And I felt the baby moving, too.”
“What’s her name?” the nurse asked, eying me with a healthy dose of skepticism. She’d probably heard the she-fell-and-hit-her-head a hundred times, and more often than not, it probably turned out a lie.
“Her name’s Brianne.”
“How many months along is she?”
“Eight. Eight months.”
The nurse looked me up and down again, and it seemed like she wanted to ask me if I was all right, what had happened to me, but she didn’t. She stepped behind the wheelchair and pushed Brianne toward a long hallway behind her. After taking a few steps, she looked back over her shoulder at me. “You need to go over to that desk in the corner and fill out some paper work.”
I nodded, and then scanned the waiting room. Each time I met eyes with anyone, they looked away. At the end of the hallway the nurse stopped and talked to a man in a white coat. She turned and pointed my direction, and he nodded and headed my way.
I wanted to fill out the paperwork. I wanted to follow Brianne to her room and make sure she and the baby would be okay. I wanted to be there holding her hand when she woke up. I wanted to tell her the truth, what she missed after she was knocked unconscious. I wanted her to believe me. I knew that once I left I’d never see her again. But I couldn’t stay. Cops would be there to question me any second. I couldn’t risk that. I had to be content knowing that she was in good hands.
I ran out of the hospital, jumped in the Camry, and sped away. In my rearview mirror, I saw a couple of nurses run out into the rain after me, waving their arms in the air, yelling for me to stop, to come back.
I ditched the Camry shortly after I left the hospital. I left it in an elementary school parking lot, broke into and hotwired an old Explorer parked roadside a block away, then left Mercy for the final time.
I drove north and stopped in a small, nondescript town called Sunray, left the Explorer in front of a vacant house in a seemingly abandoned neighborhood behind a Dairy Queen, and then walked to a cheap trucker motel on the edge of town. WI-FI and CABLE the roadside marquee read, minus the F and L.
A big lady in a blue-flower muu-muu sitting behind the motel’s front desk was watching a soap opera on a small TV. She never looked me directly in the eye. I’d put on a jacket that I’d found in the Explorer to hide my arms. I kept my hat low and my head down to hide my face wounds as best as I could. She asked for my ID, but when I told her I’d been robbed the day before and didn’t have it, she said as long as I was paying cash it didn’t matter.
I handed her all the cash I had, enough to secure the room for six days if needed.
Twenty-Eight
Last Call
Every time I’ve taken a break from typing and peeked out of the blinds at the motel’s parking lot, I’ve seen more and more blue jays hanging around. Watching. Listening.
I don’t know if the birds are now working for other Luthers that may be out there, or if they were simply set on a mission by Luther and won’t deviate from it without orders—orders they’ll never receive. I’m so tired and broken I really don’t care anymore. I haven’t eaten in four days, and my sleep has come in random, fitful spurts, infected with nightmares.
My only contact with the outside world has come via TV and the Mercy Monitor online. The day I dropped Brianne off at the hospital, they found my dad, dead in his house. There had been no forced entry, and his throat had been slit by a large pocket knife they believe belonged to Randy. I’m the prime suspect. They think Dad stumbled onto information linking me to some of the girl’s murders and Randy’s disappearance. Citing leaks from inside the Mercy Police Department, Michelle Farmer reported that along with the pocket knife, Randy’s wallet was found at the scene. Just like Luther had told Brianne.
I hope Dad wasn’t scared when Luther came knocking. I’d like to think he was having one of those days where he believed he was back in Vietnam, smack dab in the middle of a jungle, in the middle of a nasty war. If he was having one of those days, he would’ve been on high alert and given Luther one hell of a fight. In his heart and mind, he would have died fighting for his country, a great sense of pride for him.
Ryan’s body was recovered after the two oil field workers made their way back to town. Michelle Farmer interviewed both of them on last night’s news. The interview was hyped as The Two Men Who Came Face-to-Face with the Boulevard Monster. They told her they’d heard me fighting with Ryan, then heard gunshots and screams, and then…you know. A memorial service was held for Ryan and my dad at the same church where Brianne and I were married, and they were both buried at Harrington Cemetery yesterday.
I’m sure the cops have interviewed Brianne, too, but nothing about those talks has come out in the media yet. What did come out, though, thank God, is that my son (they didn’t mention a name if Brianne has given him one) was born a day and a half ago. Although four weeks early and smaller than the doctors would’ve liked, he was healthy and doing well according to the Monitor.
This morning Detective Morrell held another press conference at the police station. He said they’d already recovered two of the missing Boulevard girls from construction sites, and he was certain they’d find the rest soon. During the question segment of the conference, some reporter asked him what he would say to me if he could talk to me. He aimed his droopy, basset hound eyes at the camera, and in his typical monotonous tone said, “Seth, it’s all over. Turn yourself in. Please. We don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
I have no intention of turning myself in. It would serve no purpose. Like I said earlier, even if I retained the best lawyer Mercy has to offer, I would be found guilty. No matter how detailed my account, no matter how hard I tried to convey my true intentions, my testimony would sound too contrived, too incredible, for sensible ears. Jurors would never believe me. They would see me as a murderous, lying nutcase, and I’d spend my last days leading up to my execution behind bars, with psychologists fighting to dissect me, to figure out the true reason behind my delusions of a monster named Luther and his devilish birds.
On top of that, Brianne and Sera would be forced to sit through a heart-wrenching trial that could drag out for years. They would have to testify and would possibly be accused of knowing more than they do. They don’t deserve that. I won’t put them through it. I don’t know exactly what I’ll do when I finish this, but I do know I won’t allow myself to be caught.
I have options.
I have a length of rope I found in the back of the Explorer.
I have my 9MM and five more bullets.
Or, if I want, I’m sure the blue jays out in the parking lot would help. They look angry, and hungry.
For My Girls, Brianne and Sera
I admit I’ve made some bad decisions over the past few years, terrible ones in fact, selfish ones, but I am NOT the Boulevard Monster. I’m a concerned, loving, hard-working husband and father who felt cornered and did everything he had to do in order to protect his family. Nothing more, nothing less.
I know I don’t have all the answers you want. Hell, I don’t have half the answers I want. But I’ve given you everything I have. Everything I saw. Everything I heard. Everything I thought. Everything I felt. I hope knowing my side of the story, my truth, will help you deal with the scrutiny and questions coming your way. I hope it will help you have less hatred in your hearts when you think about me.
I don’t expect your forgiveness, but please know, please believe, that I’m truly sorry for the pain I’ve put you through. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant for Ryan, or Dad, or anyone else to die.
I love you both with all my heart.
I hope we’ll see each other again on Lurth someday, like we’ve talked about.
Take care of each other and the baby.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Native to the Texas Panhandle, Jeremy Hepler now lives in a small rural community in central Texas with his wife Tricia and son Noah. Throughout his life, he has worked jobs ranging from welder's hand to health care assistant, but writing has always been his passion.
Jeremy is a member of the Horror Writer's Association (HWA) and is currently working on his second novel, Demigod Dreams. In the last five years, he has had twenty-four short stories published in various small and professional markets, and in 2014, he placed second in the Panhandle Professional Writers Short Story Competition. You can contact him via Facebook or Twitter (@jeremyhepler) where you will find links to his blog and Amazon author page.
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