Splattered

Five: Death in Black and White

They returned to the church before parting ways. Evening had fallen. Stars glimmered over the maple trees, dodging in and out of smoky clouds rushing east on a chill autumn wind. Bunched in her coat, Keltie said goodbye to her dad, promising to visit again next month. Then, after one last hug and kiss on the cheek, she was walking home alone.

A spring accompanied her step. It had been absent for almost a year, and to have it back now surprised Keltie, almost as much as the way her gaze searched the sky as she walked, rather than her shoes, or how she twirled her folded umbrella, or the way the smile on her face shined almost as bright as the stars. But then surprises had been jumping from seemingly every corner today.

“Hey!” someone yelped as she was about to cross Hester Street.

Keltie looked left down a dirty, dismal little block that had been dirty and dismal for a long time. She saw a bar that had caught fire and closed years ago. She saw an abandoned truck dock. Nothing else.

“Can somebody help me, please?” the voice—a female’s—called again. “I’m in real trouble here.”

Keltie took a hesitant step in the caller’s direction. “Where are you?” she sent out.

Please don’t say you’re in the truck dock.

“I’m in the truck dock. I think I broke my leg.”

“f**k,” Keltie muttered. Then, to the female: “I’m sorry to hear that. But I don’t think I can help you. I don’t even have a cell phone.”

The voice’s owner seemed to find her pessimism irritating. “How on earth would you help me with a cell phone?”

“I could call an ambulance.”

“I don’t need an ambulance. Just come down and help me to my feet.”

“Forget it,” Keltie said. “You’re on your own.”

She started across the street, keeping an eye on the dock’s opening lest the other woman, who was surely up to no good, decide to leap from the shadows and claim whatever prize she hoped have at Keltie’s expense. And sure enough, something dark did leap. A woman with white skin and black hair, six feet tall at the very least, bounded out of the truck dock, then jumped onto the wall of the abandoned bar and climbed up to the roof.

Keltie’s feet froze. Mouth gaping, she watched a piece of brick fall from the old bar and smash itself on the sidewalk. Something on the roof let out a cackle—the laugh of a madwoman.

“That leg didn’t look broken to me!” Keltie shouted, before tearing off towards Benedict.

“There will be shattered bones tonight!” the woman called back from somewhere high above. “Yours! All yours!”

At that instant a gigantic piece of masonry fell through the fire escapes. Screaming, Keltie cut backwards, just as the stone hit the walk and exploded. Dirty shards more than a century old flew by her feet, banging off garbage cans and parking meters. One of them hit her boot. Keltie looked up.

And now the woman clung to the wall like a spider, grinning with long, white fangs.

She could think of nothing to do at this point but run across West Main Street, where she could duck inside Berry’s and maybe order a chocolate soda to calm her nerves. Wondering where the f**k all the other people were in this town all of a sudden, she made a break for it.

“No help over there, little girl!” the woman shrieked.

A row of parked cars blocked Keltie’s access to the opposite walk, but that was no trouble for a girl who gave gymnastics lessons at her school. She leaped onto the hood of a Toyota and had her feet back on the ground before the group of people coming out of Berry’s could even look in her direction. They were three old men and two old women—whatever that might mean—and instead of walking away from the door, to give other customers access to the restaurant, they stopped. They stopped, chatted. One of them told a joke. All of them began to laugh. Yuk yuk yuk, high hilarity on the streets of Norwalk. An evening at the Improv is now in session.

“What the f**k is so funny?” Keltie screamed. “You’re blocking the door!”

She ran next door without waiting for any of them to reply. Here she found windows lit up with plants and mannequins and antique rocking chairs. The Colonial Flower Shoppe, the word shop spelled with two ps because the owner was obviously very cool. Hip as a f*****g black cat with Wayfarers.

“Keltie,” a deep, cold voice said from the street. “Keltie Burke.”

Standing next to the Toyota was a woman with long black hair that looked cold as February curtains. Keltie didn’t want to look but felt powerless to stop. A pair of icy blue eyes glowered from a glacier white face. A long gown, also white, floated on the chill breeze.

“Don’t make me chase you,” the woman said, “or I will become angry and make it hurt all the more when I catch you.”

“What do you want?” Keltie somehow managed to ask. The door to the flower shop was only ten feet off. She told herself to run inside, to disappear. Yet the woman’s gaze was insistent. Too threatening to disobey.

“Your blood,” came her simple, steady reply. “Your flesh. Your bones. One life for another.”

Meanwhile the old men were still clapping each other on the back, saying their goodbyes. “Well, Bill, you have yourself a hell of a night,” one of them said. “It’s been good seeing you again. If I don’t get home soon I’m gonna s**t my Depends.”

The ghostly white woman in the street paid them no mind. “Come here,” she ordered, eyes unwavering.

The bell over the flower shop door dinged, breaking Keltie’s paralysis. She bolted past a young man carrying roses and into the sweet-smelling confines of the shop. Here a virtual Tolkien forest attacked all five of her senses. She could barely get a grasp of what scratched, tickled, and bloomed at her from a number of giant pots on the floor and ceiling. Brushing a huge yellow sunflower out of her face, she saw a desk, behind which stood a woman whose expression was almost as frightening as the one in the street.

“Hey,” Keltie said, glancing back once to make sure she’d not been followed.

The other woman made no reply. From one crazy b***h to the next, Keltie couldn’t help but think.

“Are there any job openings here?” she spluttered out. Her chest was still heaving from the run, and she supposed the counterwoman thought a crazy person had come into her shop. Keltie was beginning to think she might be right.

“Stella?” the woman called up a small spiral staircase to the right. “Are we hiring right now?”

“No,” an old lady’s voice snapped back from up top.

Well, let’s make that three bitches, girl. Three total bitches and you. What an evening.

Thanking the woman, Keltie darted past the counter and down a much more narrow aisle that led to what she sincerely hoped was a back door out of this place. For once luck was with her. She found a door that let on a parking lot and, casting a pair of wide eyes in as many directions as possible, ran to an old building that faced the street parallel to West Main. Another back door showed its face here. Keltie yanked it open and found herself in what appeared to be a comic book shop. She screamed at a life-sized Spiderman figure clinging to the wall, which alerted a pimply-faced boy who’d been idling behind the cash register.

“Can I help you?” he asked, eyeing her fearfully.

“Spider-Man!” Keltie gasped.

The boy glanced at the figure for a moment. “What about him?”

“Why is he in here?”

“Because this is a comic book store. Heroes!” the boy then shrieked, making his lone visitor recoil. “Legends! The world will be saved by them all!”

Keltie shook her head slowly. “Not tonight. Lock the doors when I leave. Don’t come out for at least thirty minutes.”

With that, she walked out the front door, where a poster of Wonder Woman being attacked by a monster hung. The street beyond—Seminary Street—was blessedly quiet. Down left she could see Benedict Avenue, which led straight to the detention center. The valley she’d crossed earlier was well lit, and still busy with traffic at this hour. Would the lunatic woman with shark’s teeth spot her if she tried to make the mile long trek back home?

“Hello!” the lunatic woman called down from the roof.

Question answered. Keltie ran across Seminary Street to a broken down apartment building that, according to its reputation, housed tenants who would probably eat a fifteen year-old girl for dessert if they saw one. She opened the door, looking back once to see the woman’s white gown billow out as she floated to the ground. It was time, she thought, to re-evaluate everything she believed about monsters. Either that or go to the hospital and get a f*****g CAT scan.

The apartment building presented her with a dingy flight of stairs leading up to a dingy hallway. Keltie took them two at a time. Indeed, the faster she got through this parolee-infested roach motel, the better. Up top, loud music brayed from behind doors with broken numbers. Cigarette butts lay everywhere underfoot. McDonald’s wrappers. Weird stains.

“I’m gonna play with myself all night,” a drunken voice sang from room 204, “until I find me a girl who helps me play it right!”

At opposite end of the hall was a second flight of steps. Keltie ran down them and out a door that dumped her into the parking lot of an abandoned mill. Here she stopped to catch her breath. To the left was a business block that cut her off from Benedict Avenue. Dead ahead, cloaked in shadows, were the train tracks she’d crossed earlier today, along with a bar where the worst people in Norwalk liked to hang out.

“Stop running, Keltie!” the woman’s voice, rusty and dry, called from one of the many black windows overlooking the lot.

“Why should I?” she yelled back, suddenly angry at this beast, whatever it was, for spoiling what had tried hard to be a good day.

The windows were silent for several moments. Then, as if giving in to the truth for want of a suitable lie, the woman said: “Because my boss won’t like it if I take too long to kill you! I’ll get demoted! Again,” she added, more softly.

“Oh, so I’m a sharpening post for the riff-raff tonight?” Keltie asked.

“Something like that, yes.”

“Well now I feel scared, angry, and ridiculous. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Ready to quit?”

“Not on your life!”

Fast as she could, Keltie took off towards the railroad tracks. If she could get across them to the bar, she could find safety amongst the throng of thieves, rapists, and so-so murderers who drank there.

The woman in white held no intention of surrendering her prey so easily, however. Keltie had barely cut half the distance to the bar when, gentle as a leaf, her huntress floated down to the tracks, toes balancing on the rails like a ballerina’s.

Without hesitating, Keltie cut left. The Benedict Avenue railroad crossing lay wide open in front of her, a clear shot. Even better, a black pick-up truck had slowed down to cross the tracks. Keltie vaulted quietly into the back of it and ducked down. The truck thumped over the crossing and sped up to climb the hill.

Seconds passed. Frozen against the truck’s steel bed, Keltie waited. Benedict Avenue leveled off; the driver, apparently oblivious to his new passenger, had reached the top of the hill. Naked November tree branches were now whisking through the sky. She was safe.

“Keltie, you dropped your umbrella!”

The woman’s head, all red eyes and black hair, appeared above her. A mouthful of scissor-blade teeth opened into a terrible grin before she swung the umbrella at Keltie’s face. Keltie rolled right and then left, avoiding blows hard enough to chip the truck’s clear-coat finish.

“Very good!” the woman mewed, pitching her purloined weapon over the side. “Wait till I tell my boss about your skills. He’ll probably pin a medal on me!”

The truck driver slammed on the brakes. Mouth hanging agog, Keltie watched the woman fly backward and smash her head through a sliding rear window. The driver’s side door opened, slammed shut. A middle-aged man in a CAT cap scowled down at Keltie for a moment before noticing that the other woman’s head was still stuck in the window.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” he said. Then, at Keltie: “Can you help me with her, please?”

Keltie jumped from the truck and ran down Benedict fast as she could.

“b***h!” the man yelled.

It didn’t matter. Getting away from the woman in white was all that mattered. Despite all the broken glass, Keltie didn’t think she’d been seriously hurt. Dollars to donuts, she was already at work killing the driver. Well, let her. Let her kill whoever she wanted. Norwalk was a s**t town, anyway. It needed a good purge.

She reached an intersection and decided to cross. Still in a panic from the truck ride, she ran in front of a car that almost killed her. Its tires screamed. The front bumper touched Keltie’s thigh. Someone yelled at her—Jesus, lady, what the hell? But f**k it. It didn’t kill her and that was the important thing. If a fanged monster that climbed buildings couldn’t do it then why should she worry about cars?

Her boot was on the curb at the other side of the street when she heard the monster call out again.

“Your friend is dead, little girl! Soon you will be, too!”

Keltie stopped. The monster had alluded to Penelope once tonight already—one life for another—but she’d been too caught up in the suddenness of its attack to pay it much mind. Now she turned her head to see the woman perched on the other side of Benedict, smiling for all the world like a killer whale closing in on a diver.

“One life for another,” Keltie said. “You’re right. I killed that freak at the Showboat for what it did to Penny. Maybe I should kill you for good measure.”

“Maybe you should,” the woman told her, grin intact. “Come to me and show us how.”

Keltie didn’t move.

“Smart girl,” the woman said, stepping forward. “You were lucky at the bay. We don’t die easily. In fact, most of us live forever.”

And that was when the Mack truck hit her. Keltie screamed when it happened, but no one heard. Later on, all anyone could remember for reporters at the Norwalk Reflector was the truck’s blaring horn and skidding tires. And the body, of course. The people who got out of their cars to gawk, they remembered the body. A mangled pile of bones, a white dress covered in blood. The newspaper promised to release the identity of the victim once it became available. It never did.

Keltie made it back to the detention center without throwing up—a feat she grew rather proud of as the days progressed. She was wary of being attacked again, but save for a few battered Halloween decorations, nothing with teeth swooped amongst the trees. Even the detention center, huge though it was, appeared harmless. Most of its windows were lit up in warm gold, and she stepped into the front hall to find its wood furniture recently polished. A scent of pine hovered in the air, as did the smile of Mrs. Cobb, who was working the reception desk tonight.

“Keltie!” she beamed from a pair of bifocals. “How was your visit?”

“Cool,” Keltie said flatly. “My dad was cool.”

“Really? You always talked about him like you were afraid.”

“There’s lots worse things to be afraid of these days.”

The other offered up a sage nod. “Indeed. Would you mind watching the desk for a few minutes while I use the restroom?”

“Not at all.”

Humming some unknown tune from her youth, Mrs. Cobb scuttled off. Her chair behind the desk looked inviting, but before Keltie could sit down the phone rang.

She picked up the receiver. “Maple City Youth Home.”

“You’re dead.”

The breath in Keltie’s chest caught for a moment. She glanced over her shoulder, where a long, silent hallway courted many shadows. No one was there, of course. Nor was there anyone hiding atop of the large, black staircase that led to the bedrooms. No one at all.

“Keltie,” the ominous voice on the line said. “I know you can hear me.”

“I can hear you,” she managed. “Please leave me alone.”

“Do you know who this is?” the voice asked, ignoring the plea.

Its tone suggested the answer should be obvious. Was it? Indeed, Keltie thought she recognized the deep, suave masculinity, the musky intonation. The confidence. Where had she heard it before?

“Think, girl,” the voice demanded.

“It’s a little hard to do that with people always threatening to kill me.”

“It’ll come. You work well under pressure.”

Keltie spared a look at the bathroom door, which was still closed. “That’s one hell of a piss you’re having in there, Cobb.”

“What?” the voice asked.

“Never mind. I wasn’t talking to you.” And then, like a tidal wave, the answer flooded her memory. “Bolt. Your name’s Bolt. Like the dog.”

A puff of infuriated air came through the line. “Everyone who’s joked about that to me is dead. But you’re right. This is indeed Bolt. We met at Lyon’s Park a few months ago.”

“Yes. As I recall, you don’t care for smokers very much. Guess that means you can scratch me out of your little black book.”

“I’m afraid not. Two of my minions are dead because of you.”

“Minions?” Keltie asked. “What are you people? Some kind of devil’s cult? A satanic shoal?”

“I didn’t call to tell you who we are, Keltie,” Bolt replied. “I called to tell you that your luck has run out. You’re going to die for what you did in Sandusky. For what you did tonight, you’re going to die slowly.”

“Penelope was my friend,” Keltie said through gritted teeth. “I’d known her since the second grade. So no matter what happens, I’m glad I killed that skin-headed troll. And your wicked witch.”

“Slowly, Keltie,” Bolt repeated. “I’m going to toy with you like a cat. Do you hear me? A cat!”

She heard a thump near the window and looked up.

“s**t,” Bolt muttered. “Wait.”

Footsteps followed. They came up close to the window, then faded.

“All right,” Bolt told her. “I’m going to toy with you like a cat. A cat!”

This time the glass shattered as something flew into the front hall. Screaming, Keltie dropped the receiver, which finally brought Mrs. Cobb from the restroom.

“My goodness, what was that?” she huffed.

Keltie looked down at the mess shimmering on the floor. It led to what looked like the back of a doll’s head lying beneath an empty trophy shelf. Both women walked to it slowly. A lump of dark hair, matted with blood, waited for someone to kick it over.

“What is it?” Mrs. Cobb whispered.

Understanding came to Keltie, but it wasn’t like before, when she recognized Bolt’s voice. This came much more slowly. An ear pointed at the ceiling, ragged, gnawed from many adventurous confrontations in midnight back yards. Small, sharp teeth gleamed. A yellow eye gaped at nothing.

“Meow-Meow,” Keltie said. “It’s Meow-Meow.”

“Our cat?” the older woman’s unsteady voice replied.

“Yeah.”

“But what happened to her?”

“Somebody chopped off her head.”

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

The scream from Mrs. Cobb made Keltie jump high as a bean. Then she was racing back towards the bathroom. The door opened, slammed shut. Wretched puking sounds followed.

“You’d better believe it, old woman,” Keltie said, nodding. “You’d better believe it.”

And all at once she felt like throwing up, too.