The Haunting of the Gemini (21 page)

Maria looked at me and asked if we should turn around, even though she couldn't see the man or his sign. I told her no. We had come too far—literally and figuratively. I needed to be on Eddie's ground, to look him in the eye.

The wind picked up, bending the trees and shoving the car all over the road. Maria hung on to the steering wheel and kept us in our lane. A big rig approached from the other direction. I stared at it and knew that the driver would become distracted. I kept looking as we sped toward each other. Suddenly, the driver reached down for something, taking his eyes off the road. I yelled for Maria to hit the gas. Our car shot forward just before the tractor-trailer crossed into our lane. We both looked at each other with the same holy-shit expression. Once she recovered her breath, Maria asked what I was thinking.

“Eddie is toying with us,” I said.

“Yeah,” she replied. “I have to agree. If he wanted us dead, he would have made sure of it.”

* * *

We were about a half hour away when Maria needed a break. I didn't want to stop, but she had a point. She would be waiting in the car the entire time I was in the prison with no way to use a bathroom. So we pulled over at a run-down gas station. She went around the back to the restrooms while I stayed in the car, worrying about everyone at home. I hoped they were okay. Bad things seem to ricochet and come back at you from unexpected directions. Usually where it hurts the most. I checked my phone—no calls or texts. I hoped that meant no bad news.

I impatiently tossed my phone in the back and laid on the horn. What the hell was taking Maria so long? I was getting more and more antsy as we got nearer. I felt very alone already, and sitting by myself in a car in front of a dilapidated gas station was not helping. I was reaching for the horn again when Maria rounded the corner of the building, waving a piece of paper.

“Come on. What the hell are you doing?” I said. “We have a timeline.”

She was talking away, but I couldn't make out what she was saying as she climbed into the car. She tossed the paper at me as she buckled up. It was a piece of construction paper with what looked like a child's drawing on it. A little girl held the hand of a woman who looked like me, complete with my shock of black hair. And the girl wore a yellow coat.

“What is this, Maria?” I managed to choke out.

“You tell me,” she said.

She had heard a girl come into the bathroom while she was in the stall. It was a little creepy, Maria continued. The bathroom had no windows, was badly lit, and felt a little like a dungeon. When she came out to wash her hands, the girl was standing in the corner. Maria said she asked the girl if she was okay. The girl walked over and said, “Give this to her.”

“Her who?” Maria asked.

“Who I am now,” she said the girl replied, before handing Maria the drawing and running off.

“Not through the door,” Maria told me as we sat in the car, “but through the wall.” She turned to look at me. “Okay, now I'm losing my mind. Tell me I'm losing my mind, and I'll feel better.”

I couldn't tell her that. Before I could come up with something else to say, she shook her head and rubbed her face, trying to shake it off. “Forget it,” she said. “Who am I to think anything is strange?”

I silently folded the drawing and hid a smile. It was confirmation. Jane was still by my side. Maria asked again if I was sure I hadn't seen a girl in a yellow raincoat. I shook my head. I had never told her about the child I had been in a former life, and I did not have the strength to go into it right then.

We continued on and finally reached the prison. The parking lot was almost empty. The prison itself looked like a fort, with a thirty-foot wall surrounding it. There was little vegetation around, like even the soil itself was tainted in this place. And there to greet me were the dead. It was a line of souls, ghostly figures who had once lived and loved, who now seemed to be waiting for their chance to confront the people who took their last breaths. They showed the scars from their wounds and from their autopsies. Some had faces so torn apart I could not make them out. They stood in a line right up to the prison walls. I knew they wanted their own revenge, not against me but against those inside the prison, but I did fear them. Maybe they were waiting for me to lead them inside.

It is said that God comes in strange ways. But the devil does, too. He brings certain people together, and it is not mistake or coincidence. In the end, you have only your faith to carry you forward. And you can go forward, but you can't reach the castle until you defeat the monsters of the forest first.

I got out of the car with the drawing in my bag and walked through the gate. I did not look back.

TWENTY-TWO

I stopped in the bathroom before I reached the guard station and pulled my water bottle out of my bag. The prison wives and girlfriends crowded in the bathroom with me. They took turns using a small mirror to doll themselves up. Everyone was chattering excitedly, and no one noticed me douse my head with my murky-looking liquid. Never underestimate your opponent. I said a prayer for my safe return as the holy water dripped down off my hair. It was time.

* * *

At the guard station, I gave the officer Eddie's name and ID number and handed over my own ID. It was like going through security at the airport. Belt off, clothing inspected, searched head-to-toe. The guard went through my bag and pulled out a box of crayons. An entire box of just the color red.

“Hey, you can't take this in,” he said. “And how did you find a box of all red crayons? Is this a joke?”

I'd had no idea it was in there, and I had no idea where it had come from. I couldn't tell him that, though. I cleared my throat. “No, sir. It must have been my kid. The things they do. I will definitely have a talk with her when I get home. Silly little girls . . .” I rambled on for a minute, playing dumb. It was better than telling him the truth. He eyed me carefully and told me I could have them back after my visit. I smiled. Of course.

He was a hard-ass, but I didn't blame him. These correctional officers put their lives at risk every day as they dealt with the most deadly criminals around. One slipup can cost many lives. This hit home as he slid a paper toward me to sign that stated that if an incident should unfortunately occur, authority figures would not be held responsible for my life or safety. Basically, you're on your own. Well, I was certainly familiar with that. I signed it and went inside.

* * *

I passed through several checkpoints on my way to Eddie. It was like going on a road trip, where you tour faraway lands and show your papers at dusty outposts. With each one, I felt like I was farther and farther from American soil. By the time I got to the visiting room, I was definitely in a foreign land.

Other people filled the room, family members and friends of the incarcerated. As I watched them eagerly await their loved ones, I couldn't help but think about what the loved ones of all the victims were doing at that moment. All those families and friends of all those murder victims, all over the world. They didn't get visiting hours. They didn't get Christmas cards in the mail. They just got to go through life in a state of half existence. They just got to rattle around in a garden that once bloomed but was now choked with weeds. The loved ones of murder victims deserved more than that.

I was ushered to a seat at a small school-type desk, just like the one I'd seen so many times in Eddie's bedroom. Just like the one he sat and plotted at, as a child and as a man. And his terrible visions had come true.

A large gate banged open and the inmates filled the room, heading for their visitors. They all walked and dressed the same, but their one real element in common was internal. They had all found God. Their thoughts were so clear. “The burden is now in God's hands. See, I'm all better now that I'm locked up.” Too bad they hadn't figured this out before they made the choices that brought them here. Still, it was ironic. The one thing most people on the outside had lost, they had found.

And then there was the last person to enter. Two armed guards came through the gate. One stopped and held it open, and then there Eddie stood, just as I have seen him so many times. In my home. In my dreams. In my bedroom. In my mirror. Beside me. Within me. And then, like the double exposure of a photo, there appeared to my eyes the tall man in black, right over Eddie, his twin.

The tall man in black dissolved, and again, it was just Eddie. He mouthed something silently, but I heard it from twenty feet away as though he were whispering in my ear.

“We are together again.”

The visiting room turned quiet as a tomb. The guards stood still as mannequins. The chatter of others died away. Everyone began to fade. Eddie had that ability. As my eyes went slowly around the room, I saw him doing the same thing. He held his hands out, free from restraints, and smiled. Time began again, and the guards started to move forward. Both kept hands on their guns as they walked alongside him. He was the only prisoner who got such an escort, all the way to the little desk where I sat. We were kept away from the rest of the inmates and visitors, toward the back of the room. No one was sure of what Eddie would do.

As he approached, I noticed a huge clump of dust blow out from the corner and stop right at my foot. Eddie chuckled as he pulled out his tiny chair and then spoke before I could say a word.

“Isn't this cozy, Jackie? I like how you noticed the insignificant ball of dust. To them it all means nothing. Only you looked. Only you followed it with your eyes.” He turned in his chair, taking in the entire room, where people were slowly returning to movement and talk. He turned back. “Let's talk about that ball of dust, Jackie.”

I sat and watched him as he spoke. How could he get up every day knowing what he had done? But that slipped from my thoughts quickly, because I knew what drove him, the dark soul underneath that needed to be fed.

“It was a test, and you passed. The others passed, but not the same way. They weren't supposed to notice. Just like the thousands of people that don't see or believe. You see. You noticed something that everyone else takes for granted. It means nothing; it had no meaning. No money, no future or past. But yet, it has substance and takes up space, so just because they didn't see it roll around the room, does it mean it doesn't exist?”

I knew what he was talking about. The things, the people, the actions that slip by other people. I looked into his eyes and saw the deep black pools, sharp and cunning, showing me the demon that dwelled in him. And that now sat across from me in the flesh.

He asked me how it had felt to witness the killings, the screams, the fires, the torture. How I couldn't do a damn thing about it. How I must live with it. How did it feel to be a victim? He grabbed my hand. “I'm sorry, Jackie, I couldn't wear black for you, the clothes you're used to seeing me in. They don't allow it in[side] these walls I creep in and out of.” He closed his eyes and began quoting bastardized Bible verses. “And the Lord was my weak lamb; I shall fear not a fucking thing. Oh, how the flock is weak!” He smiled and caressed my hand. I took his hand off mine and put mine under the desk.

“Enough, Eddie. I'm not scared of you. I'm here now. What do you want from me?” I wanted him to back off, and I wanted to give myself time to figure out what he was up to.

He sat back and said, “I want to show you something pretty extraordinary.”

We stared at each other and then I felt something cutting into the palm of my right hand, fast and hard. I pulled my hands out from under the desk. There, plain as day, a series of letters was carved into my right hand, all with jagged edges that were starting to bleed.

My name is Patricia and you killed me!

I quickly squeezed it into a fist and covered it with my left hand. I didn't want the guards or superintendent to see and think I had smuggled in something. I had been terrified for weeks that Patricia would inhabit my body when I finally saw Eddie. But she wanted to face him. She was back because she wanted to show him that she was no longer scared. She had stopped running.

Eddie looked at me and said in an almost boyish tone, “Oh, come on, let's see what you got. Come on, Jackie, let's play peekaboo, just like in those disgusting peep shows.”

The sweat started to run down my face. I put my hand forward and showed him the message. I suddenly smelled fear from him. His back stiffened. “How dare you, Jackie? Think you could outwit me by showing me what I have done? You're right, I didn't know her name. Nor did I care to.”

I felt Patricia pushing me aside. I struggled frantically to get back in, terrified that I would be left outside, stuck here forever with Eddie. He could see this and watched us both. “Okay,” he said to Patricia, “you got what you want.”

“Why did you kill me?” The question exploded out of me.

Eddie crossed his legs. Frost came out of his mouth. “Is it cold in here, or is it the frigid temperature of that cold, steel, lonely place—the end of the end? Can you hear the door slam? The tight coffin lid? The sickening stench of your remains?” His eyes rolled back with lustful pleasure.

Patricia sat up a bit taller. “No, Eddie, I don't!” she hissed. “That doesn't exist in my world, not anymore. You're the one stuck in hell. In spirit, you're able to leave and roam, invading other people. But in flesh, in the reality of the human race, you are and will always be in a cage. You can only live through a host.”

I pushed—so hard I almost fainted—and got her to step back. I grabbed his hand with mine and pressed the bloody message into his palm. He tried to pull away. “No, Eddie. You're going to relive your deranged life. Feel me, Eddie. See me now. It's Jackie, not your helpless victim and all the others. Look at your own mirror now. Look in my eyes.”

We stared into each other's eyes. I hadn't planned on this when I arrived, but now I knew that I needed to take him back and show him the child that he was before the devil came to him. That was my plan, anyway.

I saw myself running up the staircase of an apartment building. Babies cried and people fought and screamed behind closed doors. Old, dusty liquor bottles littered the steps. Eddie was in me, and this was his home, the drug-infested projects. As I made my way up the stairs, I could feel the glee in him build. “I'm home, Mom!”
Not so fast, Eddie
, I thought. I held on to the stair railing with both hands, because I was starting to hear the screams.

If people had been watching us in the visiting room, all they would have seen were two people sitting very still and holding on to each other with a death grip. But inside, my grasp on that stair railing was slipping. I heard every scream come from every one of his victims. It wasn't a few, or even several. It was a crowd full of moans and pain tearing through as if it had broken free and was finally able to rip him apart. Just as he had done to them and their families.

I looked up, trying to find the ceiling of the prison visiting room—the real, concrete world.
With all that is good and pure, God, please help me
. My grandfather and more. All the souls I have helped find their ways back home.
Show mercy on me. Give me only strength
. But I stayed in the stinking tenement stairwell. Eddie kept pulling me toward his old apartment. I knew now that I would not find the child Eddie. There was nothing left of him but what the devil already owned. And I knew that if he succeeded at dragging me inside that apartment, which symbolized the devil's house and the graves of all his victims, I would never leave this real-world prison. He would become the keeper of my soul, and my body would leave these walls looking like Jackie but housing Eddie. He would walk free. To complete his deeds upon the human race. Through me. I would be the Zodiac Killer. The Gemini. The body of Jackie and the soul of Eddie.

In the tenement, one hand reached for the door knob. I heard an older woman say, “Eddie, is that you?” He wanted to say, “I'm home, Mommy,” but I pressed my lips shut, muffling his voice and hopefully stopping his advance. He turned on me. “Open your fucking mouth and eat me,” his voice roared in my head. “Take my body. We are one. Drink from my cup and spill the blood.”

We were there now. His doorway was at my fingertips. I felt lifeless—heavy and dull and empty. Was this what it would feel like when that door opened? He pushed my hand toward the knob. And then the light appeared. A bright ball came through the building's roof as it cracked open. Debris fell past me and crashed down flights of stairs. The light tumbled with it, reaching the corners of horror. And out of it came a man with rolled-up sleeves and a top hat. He held the hand of little Jane, and his steps sounded like thunder. He brought her closer and her voice echoed through the dark hallways.

“Let her go! You have no power to kill anymore!” Jane turned toward me and pointed. “Run, Jackie. Come up toward the light.”

I pulled myself up and heard the chants of an American Indian war dance. I felt the power flow into me like a blood transfusion. And I walked past Eddie's door. He screamed in rage and failure. And I kept walking.

Jane and her faithful Jacob moved aside and took the light with them. Behind it was a cinder-block cell with only a desk, a sink, and a hole for a toilet. This was Eddie's real home. I wrestled with him—I had to get him back into his dungeon. I looked behind me and saw that Jacob and Jane, in the yellow raincoat, had been replaced by Will and my Forever Guardian, the spirit of the eight-year-old Jackie who died on the operating table and had protected me ever since. I stared in thankfulness. Will had always been my protector. This showed me that he always would be. It gave me such strength and hope that I was able to turn back around and face the cell, which was clear as day in my vision.