Town With No Cheer

By

C. C. Parker

 

It rained hard that night. It rained hard every night.

The killer dragged knife blade across the grass. The blood stain arched around his feet like a one track mind rainbow. Next to it, the corpse was steaming, but still. He put the knife away and walked over to where it lie. He lifted it onto his shoulders and left the scene. The rain would take care of the rest.

- - - - - - -

"Nobody’s seen him." Grover lifted the can of beer to his lips. His withered, squinty eyes stayed glued to the game; the Cowboys were playing. Who they were playing did not matter.

"Probably got sick and tired of Vicki’s bullshit," said Rudy, sucking off of his own can of Pabst Blue Ribbon . . . Only the best.

"Maybe," said Grover.

Here it comes, thought Rudy.

"But I think it had something to do with those speed freaks living next to him. You know, I heard they were into all this weird occult, sex shit. Probably gutted him and read his guts like a God damn book."

"Jesus Christ Grover. I got kids."

"This town ain’t what it used to be," he went on. "The freaks are moving in. I hear they found a dead kid in Crispin Pond behind the high school. Heard his head was shaved clean off. But you don’t hear that shit in the papers. According to the papers everything is peachy. Just peachy."

A toilet paper commercial came on the television. Grover, grinning his greasy grin, looked at his friend of twenty years. "I’d kill them people myself if I knew I could get away with it."

Rudy polished off his fifth beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Another?" He asked Grover, rattling the empty in front of him.

"Yeah. Get me another," said Grover, polishing off his own and handing his friend the empty.

Outside it was raining like a motherfuck.

- - - - - - -

The killer walked on bowed legs. Two old ladies feeding ducks in the park produced faint smiles out of their leathery faces. Nodding at them he went on. He passed through the park and beyond the stone Christ with the names of Vietnam dead beneath his stone feet; all local people. "Shiiit," he muttered.

He could feel the statue behind him, leering.

He crossed a street where cars waited for the light to turn and entered through a chain link fence. A muddy ballpark sloshed around him as he made his way over it. It was where out-of-shape high school jocks of old came in hopes of regaining past glories. "Shiiit," he muttered again, exiting through a similar chain link cutaway on the opposite side of the diamond. He took a sidewalk, following it to its end. Here was another street, another byway; they were all pretty much the same around here. He looked up at the gray sky and the blanket of endless, brooding clouds; a silent witness to these pointless crimes. And they were pointless.

The town took only those who could make it stronger.

- - - - - - -

Grover got home just before ten. His mind was still swirling drunkenly when he opened the door. By evening’s end he and Rudy had split a case and a half; eighteen beers each . . . A lot even for them "Lillian!" He hollered. You fat bitch, he thought. You asleep already?

He turned on the hall light, stumbled into the living room, toppled onto the couch and fell asleep.

He awoke the next morning disoriented. His head was pounding. He sat up and his stomach lurched, but he managed to hold back anything that was working against him. "Lillian," he rasped.

He managed to get to his feet. Fuck, his head hurt. And he couldn’t remember a God damn thing. He couldn’t believe he’d succeeded in driving himself home even.

- - - - - - -

The killer sat in a theater, in the dark, just like Lee Harvey Oswald had done over thirty years ago. The movie itself didn’t matter all that much. He was just happy to be out of the cold. For now whatever went on outside didn’t matter; it could go on just the same.

For now the town was asleep; maybe forever. And it would never stop raining. He would see to that. Never, never, never. Still, he liked to think of himself as more than bad weather. He was bad dream, if anything; all the hidden spectrals dancing.

The movie was a comedy. He laughed out loud when the funny parts came on. He looked around to see if anyone else was laughing. It did not surprise him to find that theater was completely empty.

They were out there doing his work.

- - - - - - -

The shotgun had taken Lillian’s head right off; or ‘shaved clean off’ Grover might have said in a better mood. Blood was splattered all over the ugly wallpaper he’d put up for her last summer.

Grover’s stomach lurched wickedly this time. There was no way in hell he was going keep it from working its magic this time. Several beers, German sausages, corn chips, and bean dip erupted out of his mouth and nose. It got all over Lillian’s corpse and on his new shoes. Holy fuck, he thought, discovering the gun where he’d left it.

Grover picked up the phone and dialed nine-one-one. "My wife!" He sobbed into the phone. "She’s dead! My God! Shiiit! Someone musta broke in! Dead, you hear!"

He hung up the phone, his body trembling. He looked up at the gray ceiling. The rain came right on time. It ran in rivulets down his face and got into his eyes. It spilled down the length of his body and rippled across the floor. It got around the corpse, turning the blood pink. Lillian’s fat head wobbled in the current, tendrils of meat swaying out of the stump of her neck like tentacles.

Grover thought: The freaks are moving in.

And he grinned his greasy grin.

- - - - - - -

The killer entered the rain. The movie hadn’t been half bad, he thought. There were some pretty funny parts. But nothing like real life. Nothing as funny as that.

And the rain, the town’s tears, welcomed him back.