The Girl With Aquamarine Eyes (29 page)

“I don’t know.” The physician moaned, and tried in vain to
squirm free. “I swear to you, I don’t know.”

She slapped him again. “What about my dress? You’ve ruined
my Prom.”

Tommy stepped alongside her. “Here’s your tiara. You dropped
it when you were pulled into that car.” He took the tiara from around his arm,
and handed it to her with a smile.

Heaven blushed at the handsome teenager. “Oh Tommy, thank
you.”

“And for you, Dr. Killmonster, this is for you.” She slapped
him again.

“Get her off me, Tommy!” The man’s face was bruised, and his
eye was beginning to swell shut. A faint line of blood trickled down his nose. “She
is crazy. Their whole family is crazy!”

“What’s going on Dad? Why is Heaven here?”

“He’s the one who took me, Tommy. He’s the reason I lost my
tiara, and look at the mess he made of my dress.”

“Why, Dad?”

“Yeah, why?” Heaven ‘s hand rose high into the air once
again.

“To study her, Tommy. To find out why her wrist healed so
quickly, and why a dead child at the hospital is suddenly walking and talking
after she left his room.” He wriggled in vain beneath the girl. “Now please
son, get her off me and get me some ice!”

“Come on, Heaven.” Tommy held his hand out to his angered
friend.

Heaven raised her hand once more, threatening to slap the
physician a final time. He cowered away, wincing in fright. She finally rose
from his chest, but unable to help herself, she kicked him in the leg.

“My leg, she broke my leg!” The man cried in anguish, as he
rolled across the floor away from the madness. “She’s a freak, an Adam’s family
freak!”

“You had it coming, dad.” Tommy gazed scornfully at his
battered father. “Come on Heaven, lets get you home.”

He carefully placed the Prom Queen tiara back on her head,
swept her into his arms and carried her out the door.

“Oh, Tommy, you’re my Prince.” She whispered, batting her
eyes at the handsome teenager.

“King.” He smiled. “Prom King.”

* * *

Bice stood in his suite, gazing out the window.

Without warning, a beam of yellow flashed across the lawn.
His blood ran cold as he watched a car stop at the gate house, and enter the
circular drive. It was probably a cop, coming to tell them Heaven had been
found dead in a ditch.

Although the house was cool, beads of sweat began to trickle
down his neck as he watched the vehicle come to a stop in front of the mansion.

He rushed from his room and pounded on Harmon’s door as he
passed, not waiting for a response. He raced downstairs and flung open the
double doors. He braced himself against the frame, waiting for the bad news.

“Bice!” Heaven flung herself into his arms, but reconsidered
and gazed at him somberly. “Oh Bice, tell me why a pile of furniture is on the
lawn? Please tell me you haven’t packed my things?”

“Heaven!” He grabbed her and held her tightly, fighting back
a mist of embarrassing tears. The girl he loved to hate was no more. Never
again would he call her a freak. “Heaven, I thought you were dead. Never mind
about the furniture.”

“She’s fine.” Tommy explained. “But she’s kind of upset.”

Bice stared at the boy. The brief taste of melancholy he’d
felt rapidly disappeared as reality came to call. “What happened? Who took her?”

Tommy’s eyes fell to the floor. “My dad. He planned to make
her into a science project. He said something about her wrist healing too
quickly.”

Tear’s filled Heaven’s eyes, as she gazed at Bice. “He
ruined my dress.”

“Where is this guy?” Bice grabbed Tommy by the shoulders. “I’ll
kill him for taking her!”

Tommy staggered backward from Bice’s grip. “I think Heaven
has taken care of it. She slapped him for ruining the night, and for causing
her to loose her tiara.”

“Heaven?” Harmon stood on top of the staircase, gazing in
disbelief at her.

He rushed downstairs too quickly, and stumbled. He righted
himself, smoothed his hair and straightened his shirt, attempting to regain his
celebrity composure.

His composure was short lived. He dropped to her feet,
grasped her ankles and hugged them tightly. “My girl, I thought you were gone
forever.”

“Harmon, do you mind?” Heaven gazed at the stricken
musician, and blushed with embarrassment. “We have company. Tommy and I are
starving.”

“ I’ll ring Bonita to come and fix you both something.” He
righted himself once more, and gazed at her. “I thought the worst.”

“We’re fine.” She smiled sweetly at her troubled guardian. “We’ll
fix something for ourselves, please don’t bother Bonita.” She took Tommy by the
arm, and led him down the long hall.

Bice and Harmon watched the pair walk arm in arm down the
dim corridor. They both still wore their prom crowns, as if nothing had
happened.

“Bice,” Harmon finally spoke. “I think they are in love.”

“I know nothing of love. What will we do?”

“Read a book?” Harmon shook his head in disbelief, as he
watched the pair disappear from sight. “Or take a class?”

“Never mind.” Bice suddenly snapped back to reality. “I have
a score to settle with Dr. Killmore.”

Before Harmon could react, Bice plunged through the front
doors and into the darkness. He watched in horror as the raging man rushed
across the courtyard, and disappeared into the garage.

Harmon raced after him. He’d never seen him loose his
temper. He rarely, if ever even swatted a fly. “Let the police handle him. Don’t
do this, Bice!”

Harmon reached the garage too late. He stood helplessly
watching as the roar of a car came to life. Yellowed lights snapped on,
illuminating dancing shadows in the garage.

Bice’s face came into view as the beam ricocheted across
him.

Harmon gasped. He was suddenly unable to shout out to the
man, unable to move and unable to react. Many faces he’d seen in his world
travels. Many he remembered, but most he forgot.

This face was different. A face which would certainly remain
forever frozen in his mind, along with the wadded up lyrics and ruined ball
point pen.

He was gazing at the face of a madman.

Bice slammed the accelerator to the floor. The wheels spun
in protest to their sudden demand, and finally burst into the night.

He gazed through the windshield, but something was wrong.
Tiny yellow dots littered the glass. Crumbled carcasses of bugs covered it. He
yelped in surprise. The termites were coming. Oh God no, not now. He stifled a
cry as his eyes glazed over. He couldn’t loose control, he’d wind up in a
ditch. Like the night in Philadelphia. The night the lights went out in Philly,
and the monster came knocking.

He was suddenly twenty years old again. He wove around curve
after curve along the back streets of the city. He chugged down another beer,
and tossed the can into the back seat. He was drunk at the wheel. The car
veered and swayed, but he was too inebriated to care.

If he could only turn the car at the next fork, he could
bring his brother back as he once was. He wouldn’t have run off the hill and
plunged into someone’s house. But the car was on the road to hell, and he was
helpless to stop it. Try as he might he couldn’t pull the steering wheel the
opposite direction. It was frozen in place.

A sound next to him caught his attention. He gazed at his
little brother riding shotgun. Twelve years old and a long future to look
forward to. Until the night he’d climbed into the car with his big brother.
Wide eyed and horror stricken he’d gazed straight ahead, as the car drove
faster and faster and faster still, trying to beat time itself.

He glanced at his watch. He must get to the beer store
before they closed. He promised his mother he’d watch the boy that night. He
couldn’t leave him behind, so together they jumped into the car and drove
straight into the portal to hell.

His brother used to love to go on car rides with him.
Sometimes, he even let the boy hold the wheel. But tonight was different. He
had to have that last damned six-pack.

His eyes held his brother’s gaze too long. He cried out as
the car left the road, went airborne and plunged down the hillside. A scream
erupted beside him, but he couldn’t look. He fought the steering wheel, but it
was no use. The damned fork, if he’d only veered the other way.

He woke up hanging through the windshield in an abandoned
house. His car had exploded through the living room, leaving him covered in
splinters of wood. Termites covered the wood. Termites covered him.

The wreck unearthed thousands upon thousands of them. He screamed
again, and slapped the bugs away. It was useless, there were too many. They
were crawling into his ears, his eyes and into his mouth.

He screamed and scratched the insects from his face. He
grasped the hood, and pulled himself from the windshield. He rolled off the car
and lay gasping for breath near a pulverized coffee table. But the bugs were
everywhere. They were consuming him, eating him alive. They’d come straight
from hell, and had one thing on their mind. Devouring every inch of his
inebriated flesh.

He lay in a daze for what seemed hours. The sounds of the
night drifted through the smoky haze and dust. The chirp of a cricket, the cry
of an owl. But one sound was missing.

Through the blinding headlights, he squinted at the
windshield. A length of wood had penetrated the passenger side.

His brother wouldn’t come home from the store that night. As
a matter of fact, he wouldn’t come home for the next nine months. He laid in a
coma near death for what seemed an eternity, until one day he finally woke.

The damage was done. The boy’s neck was broken, leaving him
paralyzed. He would spend the rest of his days in a wheelchair, courtesy of his
big brother’s drinking.

His mother called him a monster that night, drove him from
the house and never spoke to him again.

* * *

Harmon stared after the car as it roared away.

The acrid smell of smoldering rubber permeated the night,
threatening to overcome him. His legs suddenly turned to stone. Try as he
might, he could not engage them into movement.

He staggered backward from the distant taillights. The
bottom step of the porch caught him across the heel, and threw him onto the
steps. Once again, he righted himself and raced into the darkened house.

He leapt upstairs and pounded on his bodyguard’s door. “Hawk,
wake up!”

“What is it?”

“Heaven is back home, and Bice has gone after Dr. Killmore.
He’s the one who took her.”

He could hear the big man stumbling around inside.
Apparently, the brute tripped over something, as a jumbled string of
obscenities floated through the thick wood. A light snapped on from within,
soon its golden embers filtered under the door.

Hawk threw open the door. “Did you bring donuts?”

“Are you crazy?” Harmon’s eyes teetered on the brink of
certain self-destruction and eventual evaporation. “Go get Bice before he does
something he regrets.”

“All right, but I want them with sprinkles.”

“Yes, with sprinkles. Now for crying out loud, go get him!”

* * *

Bice gazed at the two story house looming in the darkness.

It was well off the road, surrounded by a solid wall of oak
trees. Apparently, the quack had an obsession for privacy. He gazed at the
fortress. Flower beds lined the perimeter of the home, and a large fountain
straddled the expansive lawn.

He turned the engine off, letting the car coast silently
into the driveway. It came to rest under a canopy of fruit trees. The night was
silent, other than an invisible whippoorwill which called from the darkness.

He quietly slid out and sized up the large home. A fresh
layer of fog oozed across the lawn as he squinted into the mist. Not a single
light burned in any of the many windows. It seemed as if no one were even home.

He studied the house a moment more, and finally stormed
across the front lawn and up the porch steps. The window panes rattled against
his incessant banging on the door. He banged on the door harder and harder,
until his knuckles threatened to explode. Minutes passed, which escalated his
anger even more. The inhabitant within refused to answer. If the house even
contained an inhabitant.

He pounded again until the throbbing sound reverberated
throughout the porch. The big home remained silent. He pressed his ear to the
mahogany door, but could hear nothing within. He carefully laid his hand upon
the doorknob and turned it. It was locked. Apparently the monster had already
gone to bed.

He stepped back onto the lawn, and gazed at the windows of
the upper floor. To the left of the house, a window now burned a single light.
A light which he knew hadn’t been on before. He walked toward the yellow beam,
watching it glow amber across the foggy lawn.

He gazed at the window, breaking the silence of the once
peaceful evening. “Come out here, Dr. Killmore. We have a score to settle!”

The room remained quiet. Nothing moved behind the curtains,
only the dim light burning silently within. His patience was long gone. He
stormed around the corner of the house, and groped behind the shrubs. Finding
what he needed, he stomped back to the lit window.

He ran at the window and launched the brick into the air. It
arced upward into the fog, disappeared for a moment and re-entered his view as
it crashed through the pane. The sound of shattering glass echoed across lawn.

“Get out here, I know you’re in there!”

Movement behind the billowing curtains caught his attention.
At last, the physician materialized in the gloom. He watched in horror as the
man yanked the curtains back, thrust his head out the window and aimed a large
gun carefully at him.

* * *

Harmon walked into the kitchen.