The Count of Carolina, page 12
part #2 of A Clean Up Crew Series
“He looked down at me and said, ‘Well, June. I think you’re finally ready. You woman enough for me now. I don’t go for those flat chests like them sickos that stopped coming. I like the curves.’
“Somehow, in spite of all I’d been through since the day of my mother’s funeral, this was by far the worst moment. I’d fallen as far as I could fall. ‘No,’ I said to him. ‘I don’t want to.’ It was the first time it ever occurred to me to say no. Until that moment, I’d just felt too powerless. It was a helplessness I’d learned over the years. The men were bigger, stronger. But I realized as I told him no that I wasn’t ten anymore. And this was too much. It was clear that he had no intention of honoring my refusal, as he undid and lowered his pants.
“There was no real reason for me to feel like this was going to be my moment of destiny, or even that I’d survive, but at that instant, my mind was made up. I screamed ‘I SAID NO, CONRAD!’”
“Conrad!” Dan said, leaping to his feet. “Conrad! That’s the name you shouted out in your dream. Those are the exact words you said. Conrad is your father!”
Nicole nodded but was completely caught up in telling her story, in finally casting aside the pall that had been over her for so many years. “Even after I screamed at him, he finished taking off his pants and he kept coming. He set the lantern down beside the cot and was ready to climb on top of me. I looked at his crotch. He was aroused, but there was not much to show for it. The lantern cast a glow upwards that illuminated the area perfectly. Without really even thinking, I kicked him there as hard as I could, digging my bare toes deep into his scrotum. I don’t believe his screams were as loud as mine had often been in that place, but they were loud enough. He dropped to the floor like he’d been shot, grabbing his pathetic manhood and howling like a wounded dog.
“Now everything happened very fast. While he was still incapacitated, I jumped up, grabbing my clothes. Still naked, I started for the door, but at the last minute, I stopped and turned. His pants were lying right next to him. I knew the car keys would be in there, so I reached for them. To my shock, he grabbed my wrist. He was weakened by the kick, but his grasp was still strong. Without hesitation, I bent down and bit into the only thing I could reach, which was the back of his hand. I bit down hard, and as he screamed again, I tasted his blood as it spurted into my mouth. He drew his hand back, and I took the pants, pausing long enough to plant a second kick to the same target, this one much harder. I could still hear him screaming and cursing me as I got into the car and started the engine.
“I’d never been allowed to drive, so I knew only from watching, but I didn’t let that slow me down. I jammed the tranny into reverse, spun around, and drove for a quarter mile in the dark before I thought to turn on my lights. Once I was far enough away that I felt momentarily safe, I slammed on the brakes and pulled my sweatshirt and jeans on. I hadn’t had time to grab my shoes, and I hadn’t bothered to turn on the heat in the car, so by the time I stopped, it was pretty cold, but I wasn’t worried. Because in that quarter mile, I’d formulated a plan. It was 1990, and there were no cell phones yet, so Conrad wouldn’t be calling for help. Also, he wasn’t going to get far with no pants. There was probably already an ‘appointment’ set up for the following day. I never knew until we were leaving for the shack, but the three regulars had been needy lately, so there was a good chance he’d be rescued the following day.
‘That gave me enough time to drive home, which seemed easier than I’d expected. Apparently, driving was no big deal, or so I thought until I reached the narrowest part of the dirt road that led to the shack, which was deeply rutted and on a downhill incline. I was going about 40 when I hit the tree. Thanks to the seatbelt, I was fine, but the car wasn’t going any further. The front end had taken on the shape of the tree, and the radiator was toast.
“So I had to improvise. I hiked another mile or so to the main road, and after walking on the shoulder for a couple hours, I was lucky enough to get a ride offer from a Yankee truck driver. Naturally, at first, I assumed the worst. My experience with men over the past six years didn’t leave much room for optimism. But I got lucky and he turned out to be a kind man who told me he hoped someone would do the same if they ever saw his daughter walking alone in the country at night. I caught him glancing over at me a couple of times, but I think he was just wondering why a sixteen-year-old girl was in the middle of nowhere, in January, with no shoes or coat. Whatever was on his mind, he never asked. He just made innocuous small talk until he dropped me off a ways inside the city limits. From there, home was only about a fifteen-minute walk.
“Unfortunately, when I got there, I realized that I’d left the keys in the dead car, and had to break a window to get in. Not many people locked their doors in our neighborhood, but Conrad always did. It didn’t matter. I was never going back there again.
“Once inside, I gathered enough clothes to fill a backpack and collected up all the money I could find. Because of the accident, I had a few hours less time than I’d started out with, but there was still enough time to find Conrad’s hiding places. He usually kept the money he brought in from selling me off night after night in the house. He was paranoid about banks, especially regarding cash that couldn’t be easily explained. I managed to find over a thousand dollars.”
I felt about ready to leave, although I didn’t really know where I was going. I just knew I was leaving and never coming back. Then, as I was headed toward the back door, I passed Conrad’s little weapons collection.” She smiled at Dan, whose mouth was still hanging open. “Compared to what you saw at the safehouse, his was tiny. I guess that was a theme with him.” Dan didn’t react, but J.J. caught the joke and knew she was referring to Nicole’s father’s less than astounding penis.
“But I grabbed a .38 snubbie and some bullets. Again, I thought I was done, but then I saw the hunting knife. And it was like when you see heaven open and hear the angels sing in the movies. I knew exactly what I was going to do.
“In our garage was my mother’s car, an 1984 Cutlass, that Conrad hadn’t started since the day she’d died. I always wondered why he’d kept it, but I supposed he didn’t really need the money and he didn’t really use the garage, so it was probably just laziness. I went into the garage and looked at it. There was six years of dust on everything, but to my delight, the keys were in the ignition. I didn’t really understand about car batteries, so I didn’t know how lucky I was that it started after sitting so long. I guess he must have run it from time to time to keep it charged. At any rate, I had a car again. I knew nothing about expired tags and things like that, but I didn’t care.
“It was Saturday morning now, and by the time I’d thrown my pack of clothes in the back seat, it was that last hour before the sun began to rise. I opened the garage door and carefully pulled the car out, realizing now that the whole operating a car thing wasn’t quite as simple as I’d hoped. But I got out with no incident and started driving back to the cabin, the loaded gun in my lap.
“I was hoping to find Conrad pathetically waiting for the dawn, waiting to be saved. I parked the car in a little turnaround a ways from the shack, grabbed the gun and the knife, and, my feet now snug in my sneakers, crept quietly up to the clearing.
“At first, I waited at the edge of the clearing and listened. I heard nothing, so I snuck up to the shack and peeked in. Conrad was gone, along with the lamp and the heater. I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.
“I was sure I’d get back to the shithole and find Conrad pathetically alone. And I was going to kill him. I was going to pay him back for stealing my childhood and replacing it with a waking nightmare. I was going to make him suffer. But he was gone.
“I sat on the bed, and started to cry.
“Believe me, I’d cried plenty in those horrid years, but this was different. It was as if my very soul was weeping. I sat there for hours sobbing until it felt like there was nothing left inside of me to cry out. I was just about to walk back to the car and try to come up with another plan when I heard car tires coming down the dirt path. I grabbed my weapons and ran out of the building before the car pulled into the clearing, hiding behind a tree that offered me a clear view as a black Lincoln pulled up to the spot where the cars usually parked. I knew right away that it was another of the remaining three who liked to visit. It was, in fact, Clark Brockway.
“He sat in the car for a while after killing the engine, and I started piecing things together. He was probably expecting a little Saturday morning pleasure, and assumed he’d gotten there before Conrad and me. So he took his time. After about ten minutes, he got out and walked into the shack.
“I remember thinking, ‘If I can’t take care of Conrad, at least I can hurt this bastard.’ I tiptoed out of the trees and moved as quietly as I could toward the door. When I reached the stoop, I avoided the board that always squeaked when stepped on and peeked around the corner. Brockway was standing with his back to me. He was pissing on the floor, which I’d come to realize was some sort of important ritual to these pigs as well as a major source of the shack’s stench. Holding the pistol above my head, I rushed him and smashed the back of his skull with it. It was an instinctive act, and a lucky one. He slumped to the floor, out cold.
“For a minute, I just stood over him, but then I dropped to my knees and started tearing his clothes off of him. I tied his hands and feet and then when he was bound and naked and helpless, I slapped his face until he woke up. Then I slapped him again.
“When he opened his eyes and they came back into focus, he must have seen that I was sweating from the exertion and he smiled. ‘Are we trying something new today?’ he asked me, trying the ropes around his wrists.
“‘Yes,’ I replied, making my voice sexy, much as Uncle Clyde had taught me, ‘something very different.’ When he saw me take the knife from behind my back, he stopped smiling.
“‘Okay, June. We don’t need that!” he said, realizing, I think, that he was in serious trouble. I didn’t give him a lot of time to let that thought sink in. I grabbed his dick with my left hand, yanked it hard, and in a single slice, I hacked it off.
“His screams were louder than mine had ever been, and I’d let out some blood-curdlers over the years. I knew there was no danger of being heard by anyone, unless Conrad was still lurking nearby, but I’d already grown bored with the sound. It was hollow recompense for all he’d done to me. I picked up the gun, and while he was still screaming and flailing around, I poked his forehead with the barrel. In spite of his pain, he shut up. I pictured him begging for his life, offering to help me, offering anything to me that he thought might save his worthless life. But I decided I wasn’t interested in any of it. His mouth was open, with a line of drool running out the left side, and I shoved his severed pride in so far he choked, and then I just pulled the trigger.
“The gun was louder than I’d expected, but that wasn’t what startled me so much that I almost dropped it. It was the explosion of his brains out of the exit hole in the back of his head.
“Maybe ‘startled’ isn’t the right word. Oh, I jumped, don’t get me wrong. But I didn’t feel frightened, or gratified, or redeemed. I was fascinated by the spray of blood and brains. It went everywhere. The bed, the floor, me… nothing was spared. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
At various times during Nicole’s long story, J.J. felt that she’d been telling it as if it had been something she’d read about, or had been told by someone else, but now she saw her mother’s eyes almost glaze over as looked into the distance. She seemed to be gazing through the mist left behind by the passing years and was actually seeing what she was describing. When Nicole described the dispersion of Clark Brockway’s brain-box contents, her daughter thought her facial expression hinted of ecstasy.
“I could never have believed I could feel so powerful, especially after such a prolonged period of utter helplessness.”
Dan had been touching Nicole as she spoke. He too saw the distance in her eyes, and while he didn’t want to distract her from the dreadful story, he did want to provide an anchor for her. But now, as she spoke of the beauty of an exploding skull, he drew his hand back. Dan had caused a similar spray in Bucharest when, in a blind rage, he had executed the woman tasked with protecting the mark, believing that she’d killed his wife before his eyes. By the time Cole was able to tell him she was only hit in the arm, Dan had dispatched her, and while he could understand a sense of morbid fascination at the phenomenon of a bullet passing through a head, he would not have called it beautiful. But before he could process this new wrinkle, Nicole began speaking again.
“Obviously, I’d crossed a line. The thing was now that I was standing on the other side of it, I kind of liked the view. It occurred to me that as good as this felt, disposing of the rest of the men that Conrad had allowed to hurt me could only be equally satisfying.
“I didn’t know where any of the men lived, and I didn’t know if Conrad would have been able to find a way to warn them. As he pushed his way back into my thoughts, I realized that he could still be hiding nearby. It just didn’t seem to me that he would go far with no pants.
“But then I’d noticed that a large section of the filthy mattress’s loose outer layer had been removed, ripped raggedly. I could see the missing piece was big enough for him to wrap around himself like a towel after a shower. So he’d decided to run for it. I realized that unless there was somewhere else nearby where he could get assistance, he had a long, cold walk ahead of him.”
Nicole paused once again. To J.J., it seemed as if she had ventured off again mentally and was no longer sitting in a hotel room, telling a horrible story. She was in the middle of it, memory thrusting her right into the heart of that fateful day, and telling the tale to them from across the years and the miles. She also noticed that over the course of remembering, her mother had gone through several changes – from spasmodic sobbing as she evoked that terrible first day to steely hard as she looked through mist and blood to the day she took her first life.
“I’m not going to bore you with the details, but by springtime, there were ten bodies stacked up in that cabin. All died horribly, all had the thing they’d used to hurt me shoved into their filthy mouths. Once I’d killed Clark, I knew the others all had to die as well. For the most part, I don’t really think these people talked to one another, because as their numbers decreased, they didn’t seem to notice, even as the names started showing up in the news as missing people. Conrad and Uncle Clyde had dropped off the face of the earth, but the others kept up the appearance of normal life.
“Of course, those that had stopped coming around as I matured were out of the loop, so I took care of the few that were still visiting me first. Like Clark, this handful of the faithful had pretty much been cut off from their families as their ‘preferences’ became known to them, so their disappearances went unreported, seemingly unnoticed.
“The others had somehow not yet been found out, even by wives who always felt their husbands were just going through the motions in bed. I’m speculating about that. I don’t know what their families thought of them, but the point is after eight had been sent to their eternal reward and were further stinking up the shack, people started noticing.
“I ended up having to do the last two on the same day. Again, the details are unimportant, but once the last of the club had joined the others, realizing Clyde and Conrad were probably not in Greenville anymore… probably not even in South Carolina anymore, I took the big can of kerosene Conrad kept around and doused everything thoroughly, and as I left that shack for the last time, I pulled out an old Zippo of Conrad’s that I’d taken from the house the time I’d gone there, and with a satisfying spin of its little ignitor wheel, I tossed it over my shoulder.
“It was the smoke from the woods that brought the whole thing to light. I was long gone by the time the fire trucks got there, but later that night, I was sitting in McDonalds, eating a Quarter Pounder before heading to the crappy motel room I was renting. I was thinking about what I was going to have to do to find Conrad, when a young woman sat down at the table next to mine. She was probably about twenty-five, I figured, and pretty in a plain sort of way. I didn’t really think anything of it at first, but after a moment, she said, ‘June, I need to talk to you about something.’”
“Uh-oh,” J.J. said. “Probably set off all your alarms at once, huh?”
“Absolutely. I thought about bolting, but she quickly said, ‘It’s okay. I’m not here to hurt you in any way. I’m not a police officer, and I’m not a friend of Conrad Barker. But I know you, June. And I know what you’ve been doing to the men who hurt you. I’d like to offer you a solution to the situation you’re in now.’”
“’I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I told her. ‘What situation?’
“She looked around and then said, ‘This place is no good. Listen, I realize you have no reason to trust me whatsoever. But you need to. Just give me a few minutes, and if you don’t like what I have to say, you go your way and I’ll go mine.’”
“Who was it?” Dan asked. J.J. already knew.
“Getting to that,” Nicole said. “We walked outside to a pickup parked not far from Mom’s old beat-up car and we got inside. She started talking very quickly, as if she was hoping to get everything said before I told her to take a hike. ‘I know you’ve been killing your abusers. I pieced the whole story together from the few news clippings that have been popping up.’
“’How could you know about this? No one knows. No one cares.’
“‘Oh, they’re starting to know, and at least one Greenville PD detective cares very much. He’s starting to piece things together. And I can tell you this, after the word gets out about what was found in that shack once they put the fire out, the shit is about to hit the fan.’
“‘So what are you telling me, lady?’ I asked. Obviously, she somehow knew everything, apparently more even than the police did, since she was the one sitting in the car next to me and not a cop.
