Of Daughter and Demon (6 page)

“Let me just show you a sample of what I can
do,” he said, proud like a poor man with a brand new car. He spun
the combination left, right, left,
clickclickclick
, and the
door opened up without so much as a creak to the hinge. He pulled
out a video tape and a stack a Polaroids. I looked at the one on
top, and that was enough. All I needed to see was your little face,
your little angel face, Alice, and it signed his death warrant.

I knocked the stack a pictures out of his
hands and he looked up to say something but before he could I
jammed my finger into his eye, bent my finger at the knuckle and
pulled my finger back out, and there was his eyeball dangling on
the stalk and resting against his cheek. It’s an old trick, Alice,
and one I wish I didn’t know. But it worked. It got his attention.
He started to shriek then, a sound he must have heard from you,
Alice, a sound of pure terror, shock, disgust, and pain, and
knowing he made a sweet angel like you scream like that made me
more mad, and I punched him one right between the eyes. I heard a
crack as the bridge a his nose shattered and blood poured out his
nostrils like a faucet, his one good eye rolled in its socket as he
fell over backward. While he was out I took a picture of his face,
a Polaroid, with his camera, the camera that saw what he made you
do, Alice. I put the pitcher of him in my pocket and smashed the
camera.

When he woke up, he was tied to a chair,
naked except this silk g-string thing he had on under his robe. I
was sitting in another chair in front of him, so outta that one
good eye, I was all he could see. He started to scream again.

“You make one more sound I don’t tell you to
make, I’ll pull your dick off with these,” I said. Don’t listen to
this, Alice, and don’t watch it either, cuz I held up in my hand a
large pair a pliers, and Bradley knew I was serious.

“Wh--what do you want from me?” He began to
cry real tears from his good eye, and some reddish kinda ooze outta
the other. But a puke like this, he don’t deserve to cry, that’s
what people do, and he ain’t people. He’s a monster, him an’ all
the rest, all them I killed tonight and all the ones I didn’t.

“What happened to that little girl in the
picture you showed me?”

“I--I don’t know, I--”

I reached between his legs with the pliers
and clamped ‘em on, not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to get
his attention, for it had wavered for a moment, and we just
couldn’t have that.

“OK!” he yelped. Yelped, only way to describe
it. He yelped like the little shit eating dog he was. “OK! He took
her, he took her--”

“Who?”

“I don’t know--”

Squeeze.

“Ahhh! No! I swear I don’t know his name, he
never told me!”

Squeeze.

“I! I sw--I swear! He never told me his
na-aaaaame!”

I let up on the pliers, let him catch his
breath. We had a long night ahead of us, Bradley and I, and I
didn’t want him passing out again too quick. This was the critical
time, when the pain I was inflicting cleared his mind. Too long,
and it would cloud it, and he’d make stuff up he thought I wanted
to hear just so I would finally let him die.

These are all old tricks, Alice, and I wish I
didn’t know them.

“Why do you wear that robe?” I asked.

Nothing. Squeeze. Scream. Squeeze.

“I, I can’t tell you, they’ll come for
me.”

“They might, but I’m already here. I don’t
know what they’ll do to you, but you got a pretty good idea of what
I do, don’t you? Don’t you, Bradley?”

“Y-yes!”

“Who’s They?”

“The others like me!”

“Why do you wear the robe? You a priest?”

“I’m, I’m a Holder. It’s a uniform.”

“What’s a Holder, Bradley?”

“I watch them for him, I watch the Chosen,
and I hold them until he’s ready.”

“Ready for what?”

Bradley just cried.

Squuuuuuueeeeeze
. Something in him
burst, I heard it faint like a thunder clap a hundred miles away,
but I bet it was much louder in Bradley’s head, loud like a shotgun
blast, his eye got wide and he screamed and screamed and
screamed.

When he woke back up, I was sitting where I
was the last time, right in front of him. This time, I held a
little acetylene torch up. I turned the knob, flicked my lighter,
put it to the nozzle and showed him the flame. He started cryin’
again.

“You ready to talk, Bradley?”

“Please,
pleeeease
, don’t hurt me
anymore.”

“How many times you heard that, Bradley? Huh?
How many little kids you heard that from?”

He didn’t answer, but it was a question I
didn’t need an answer to. But I had more questions, and Bradley, he
better have answers.

“Who are you a Holder for?”

“I told you, I don’t know his name. None of
us know his name. Maybe Father Valentine might, he helps him.”
Bradley looked up then, his one eye gleaming, and he smiled just
like a dying shark. “It’s a
demon
that makes me do these
things!”

“Right. Sure, Bradley. A demon.”

“I never touched a kid until he made me a
Holder. I mean, I wanted to, maybe, but I never tried. He me what I
am. He makes me do it! He’s a demon, and he’ll get you too.”

“Where’s he live?”

Bradley didn’t say anything right away like I
wanted, so I applied the flame to his knee and listened to the
sizzle of skin and his screams, breathed in the smell of cooking
flesh, because those things were heaven to me right now, comin’ off
a puke like him. Bradley screamed, I took the torch away and he
talked.

“I don’t--”

“Not good enough.” I put the flame back on
him, this time higher up on his thigh.
Sizzle
. “Next time
it’s your nuts I’m burning off, Bradley. So tell me, where’s he
live?”

“I--I don’t know!”

This time I believed him.

“Next question. Who’s this Father
Valentine?”

“He, he brought him here, and he helps him,
he helps him
become
, it’s all I know, I swear to
God
it’s all I know.”

“Where can I find this Father Valentine?”

“I--”
sizzle
, still only on the
thigh.

“I--”
sizzle
.

“I DON’T KNOW! I don’t know anything else! I
can’t TELL you ANYTHING else! He just shows up when it’s time, I
never know when, now please please don’t hurt me anymore.”

“One more thing, Bradley, and it’s over.”

“O--OK, please, I want out, I want away.”

“One more question, Bradley. You ready?”

He nodded.

“Did you touch that little girl in the
picture you showed me?”

Bradley started to laugh.

I stood up outta my chair. “Did you? Bradley?
Did you touch her?”

His laugh turned to sobs and he looked at me
again. “She’s dead! He came and got her and he killed her! What’s
it matter, huh? What’s it matter if I touched her?”

I leaned in real close, Alice, until our
noses almost touched. “It matters to me, Bradley, because she was
my daughter.”

His eye got even wider and he laughed and
cried at the same time.

“I fucked her!” he screamed. “I FUCKED your
DAUGHTER!” and he screamed a lot more after that but none of it was
words, and Alice you shouldn’t watch this, but I burnt him. I put
that flame in between his legs until there was nothing but charcoal
down there, nothing but charred meat. I put the flame in his face,
I boiled one of his ears right off, it bubbled and steamed and ran
down the side of his face and neck, only this one left a trail of
blisters leading back up to a blackened, swollen hole, and this was
all good, but it wasn’t enough.

He was still alive, still screaming. So I
beat him. I started beating him with that lead pipe, right between
the eyes, I hit him again and again and again, harder each time,
harder and harder until the screaming stopped and then harder still
cuz I knew I finished him too quick, quicker than he deserved,
quicker by years, by lifetimes. But I couldn’t help it. I kept
hittin’ him and the flesh scraped and tore away from his skull, and
when his skull began to crack I threw the pipe across the room and
jammed my thumbs in his ruined eye sockets deep as they would go. I
dug my fingers into that crack in his head until my fingers touched
brain and made his dead body twitch, and I pulled his fucking skull
apart, Alice, it came with a wet cracking sound like I ain’t never
heard the likes of, and splinters of bone shot up and juices and
blood, so much blood. I pulled harder until one half of his burnt
face was hanging down past his shoulder, only held up by the skin
of his neck, I kicked the body over and what was left of the brain
kinda slid out of his head on the floor, just a little, just
enough, and I stomped it and kicked it, this terrible soft machine
that made him do the things he did. It splattered just like kicking
a fresh piece a dog shit on the sidewalk.

The little hole he lived in was inside an old
empty apartment building, and I cleaned up, went to the car, got
the gas can outta the back, and burnt the building down. The fire
raged, Alice, the building went up quick because it was ready to
burn, it wanted to burn, to be rid a all the terrible things it was
never built to see. Sometimes I feel the same. Hearing him say what
he had done to you made me feel like that, like dying, like I was
ten years past dead. I stood across the street and watched it burn
for awhile, until I heard the first call of the sirens, and if I
didn’t need to find this Father Valentine and this other fella, the
one what killed you, I mighta just walked into that fire and been
done with it.

It was late and I was tired, I stunk of burnt
puke and smoke, so I went home to the bar. It was oh, almost four
in the morning by now. Fifties Chick had closed shop for me, and I
was happy and surprised to find her asleep in my bed. I sat on the
edge in just my shorts, after taking another shower, and watched
her sleep till I smoked a cigarette to the filter. She’s a angel,
Alice, a angel just like you. On the bedside stand is a picture, I
take it down and look at it. It’s a picture of me, and you, and
your Ma. It was taken the day you disappeared, and until then, I
thought I was doing OK. Sure we was divorced then, but we still got
along well enough when we was around you. Remember that day, Alice?
You laughed when I put that bit of cake on your little button nose?
The years before then, the two years before you was born and the
years until you was taken, those years are the best outta my whole
life. I was happy, and I loved you, and your Ma.

She was beautiful back when I first met her
at that little coffee shop, back when I fell in love with her. She
never really loved me back though, your Ma. Not as much as I loved
her anyway, but she loved us both the only way she knew how.
Nothing against her Alice, but there was just something in her that
couldn’t love all the way, something missing, she’s said so herself
a hundred thousand times.

Back then I was still on the force. I didn’t
have the bar then, that came later, but I was happier then, because
of you, Alice. I thought things would change when you come along,
for your Ma, I mean, and they did, a little. She loved you, she
swore up and down every day she loved you, and I know she did.

Don’t say that, Alice. She
did
love
you. I told you, you can’t blame her, it ain’t her fault. Blame me
if you hafta, but think good things of your Ma. Even if she is the
richest broad on that hill now, her life ain’t no picnic. You seen
how she was when I was up there.

I look at the picture, me in a good coat and
tie, Angie in her favorite blue dress, and you, Alice, wearing
overalls, all pigtails and curls and smiles, with them little pink
ribbons in your hair.

The only thing I cried for in these last
thirty years since the war, has been you, Alice, and I was someone
else when I was over there.

I cried when you was born, and I cried the
day you was taken from me. I cried when I found you, and when I was
thinkin’ of you earlier, and right now, lookin’ at you and me and
your Ma. I didn’t know I was crying this time though, not until
Fifties Chick put her soft hand on my shoulder and whispered things
in my ear, and then I knew.

I looked her in the eyes and she seen in mine
that I did some terrible things tonight. I know it was for you,
Alice, and that it was all monsters, pukes, that I done ‘em to, but
when I finally kick over I’ll hafta explain all this to someone,
and I only hope if there’s a god up there with you, he’s as
forgiving as they say, or I might have some problems in the
afterlife.

But I can’t ask for any forgiveness for what
I done tonight, not from any man or woman or god, because I ain’t
sorry and I’d do it again. And Fifties Chick, she sees all this and
wants to ask about it, but knows she don’t wanna hear it and that I
wouldn’t tell her anyway, so she just helps me into the bed, covers
me up, and kisses me once on the forehead before she leaves.

God bless Fifties Chick, and everyone like
her.

The morning for me comes fast, no sleeping
late today; I got too much on my mind, too many ghosts in my dreams
to sleep for long. I’m up and in the shower around eight o’clock,
which means I got more or less four hours of sleep. I feel good
though, better than can be expected I suppose. I’m still sore in
the ribs, nose, ear, and back of my head, thanks again, Mikey. Even
after another shower it seems I can still smell the stink of
Bradley on my skin. I go down to the bar and use the little kitchen
in the back room to make myself a little breakfast, just some bacon
‘n eggs again, but I have a big glass of milk like when I was
little, and then a cuppa joe and a smoke. Then the phone rings, and
before I pick it up, I know who it’ll be.

“Mr. Duluoz?” I ask.