 Donna
November 15th, 1981
Rocky Bluffs, NC
A tormented scream ripped through the musty bedroom, primal in its agony. Donna’s voice was nearly gone; vocal cords shredded and raw. There were no longer any valleys between the peaks, no moments where the torturous throbbing would recede a bit and she could sob a few waterless tears for the brief but blessed relief. Now there was only the unabated torment of birthing; a merciless jagged sharpness that slashed and scoured her tender insides like a fistful of glass shards. The contractions had been going on for nearly six hours now, and her fragile body was wracked with immeasurable anguish.
Abruptly, another wave of queasiness slammed through her, and she lurched forward, bile surging into the back of her throat. Donna whimpered quietly and bowed her head as the nausea crested. She gripped her clammy knees and gulped in torrents of fetid air, panting in time to the quickening pulse of her unevenly stuttering uterus.
A final contraction clenched inside her body like a sheath of razor wire. She fell back onto the bed and, tasting another spurt of coppery bile, she felt the room fade to black as she surrendered herself to the pain that blossomed inside her like a poisonous flower.
As she neared unconsciousness, she felt something rushing out of her; tearing her delicate membranes in its undue haste. With a final brutal pulse, the squirming mass slid completely out of her broken womb and onto the soiled wet sheets.
In the sweat-stenched room that she no longer inhabited alone, Donna lay for almost an hour in a state not unlike death. She’d never been so exhausted in all her life. Although aching spasms still wrenched intermittently through her body, the unbearable pressure was finally gone. She was slowly returning to normal, yet the lack of life within her was an undeniable, albeit blessed, void. On the bed beside her, the tiny baby was mewling weakly, kicking its miniature feet against the air and crying in helpless, grasping hitches. Donna turned to look at it, feeling only a chasm of emptiness inside.
She had not wanted this pregnancy. It had been nothing more than a stupid mistake. One that had threatened to ruin the rest of her life and keep her tied to this shitty little town forever. She had big plans for her future – plans that had no room for a child.
Donna reached behind her back and pulled out a sweaty pillow with hands that trembled from unbearable fatigue. The baby’s eyes were hardly open. It wasn’t breathing too well. The afterbirth, which had been viscous and slimy when it had slid from inside her, was now drying out, and the violet, throbbing umbilical cord had become still and fishy-gray.
She laid the pillow gently over the baby’s face and sighed, long and deep. She felt small movements as the baby fought; pushing instinctively against the smothering weight of the cotton under her heavy, determined hands. The struggle was futile. Looking down passionlessly at the pale, trembling legs, Donna realized for the first time that she had delivered a boy. But that thought was no more lasting to her than a dandelion seed caught by a sudden breeze.
Donna sat up on her bed, as still as a statue, sensing the horror of her actions from a foggy, numbing distance. Her rational mind remained as blank as a snow-swept field while her hands pressed mercilessly down, down. The seconds clicked by in the fleetingly-peaceful silence; the clock on her bedside table the only sound that broke the deadened air. She counted the ticks, over and over, feeling as if the nightmare of her past nine months was finally winding down.
A gasp from the doorway snatched her from the empty, white depths. A tall, forbidding figure was standing in the hall. It was her mother, home from work already. In the utter and mindless panic of labor, Donna had lost all track of time. Blood coated the bed, slicking the sheets and staining the pillow that now covered the newborn’s face. Underneath her sweaty palms, it no longer struggled. Donna glared sullenly towards her mother as the plump, older woman gaped back at her; sheer disgust clearly outlined on her stunned and mortified face. For a moment, neither breathed, nor moved.
Then, like a rupturing dam, the inertia was broken. The first slap rattled her teeth. The second one knocked her sideways onto the sticky bed. Her mother clawed at her; grabbed her by the roots of her hair and dragged her down onto the hard floor. Donna collapsed onto the thin, shag rug like a broken doll. As she lay there quietly, staring at the backs of her mother’s white crepe-soled shoes, she listened to the soft whooshing sounds of air being pumped into the baby’s lungs. Suddenly, she heard an angry squall as it came back to life in a panicked rage, and then she knew, with a detached certainty; that in this - as in everything else - she had irrevocably failed.
Jackson
August 22nd (Present Day)
Brooklyn, NY
The brilliant sky hung above him like a hammer, and he closed his eyes against it and turned away. In the park, the birds sung sweetly. Kids were playing, dogs were barking, lovers walked hand in hand. But Jackson buried his face into his scratchy woolen blanket and wept for a loss that no one else could ever comprehend. In his head, the shovel still punched into the desiccated earth and then tossed the bitter clods down upon his mother’s casket in a dry rain of dirt and stones.
“I’m so sorry Momma,” he whispered, as the tears stung the backs of his eyes. The loss was a heavy burden that sapped his heart and bled it completely dry. He had never realized how badly this would hurt. Years before when he’d lost his grandmother, he’d felt an almost overwhelming sense of relief. She had always been there for him, so strong, so capable. But her expectations of him had always worn him out, exhausted him; drained him to the core. He missed her, but it wasn’t the unbearable ache that now overwhelmed his body like an invasive disease.
Long ago, he’d tried to save her; his precious mother. For almost six years, she’d seemed better and he had known what he’d done that night was right. But then slowly, insidiously, she had started to slip once more. He had come home to visit her every Christmas, every summer, each and every year since he had moved away. But four years ago, he had suddenly stopped. He had known then that he desperately needed to escape the unbearable pressure of her despair, before it swallowed him whole once again. He could not bear to witness her personal destruction as she slid into the insane depths that sometimes held her, drowned her; made her a monster inside.
He had thought it would be better to be free of her, at least for a little while. But he had been wrong. So wrong. He was as free of her now as he could ever be, and yet with the dawn of each new day, the pain of it nearly knocked him to his knees. So now, he only blamed himself. If he’d been there, helping her, buoying her, she wouldn’t have taken that handful of pills. If only he’d been willing to save her again, just one more time. But he was weak. He had never deserved her. And now, it was too late. She was lost to him forever.
Emotion choked him, and the sour taste of self-loathing coated his throat like a milky skin. If only he had a second chance, he knew he’d never fail her again. He would give anything for the time, the opportunity to do it over. “Oh God, Momma, please help me,” he cried under his breath, but was greeted only by the silence of the dead. She was gone. And for the first time in his life, Jackson was utterly alone.
He scrubbed his face deeper into the rough fabric, raising painful welts along his cheeks. His innards were hollow and barren; echoing only with the legacy of regret. It was time to go home for good. If he could no longer save her, then maybe he could join her. His life no longer held any meaning, and nothing was left for him here now. He had tried at first - once he’d gotten back from the funeral – tried to go to work, blend back in, be normal, be just like everyone else. But it had been a sheer impossibility. He simply could not do it. Things had changed; forever. And he had changed with them.
He sat up, wincing as tiny lights flashed and winked across his vision. For the first time, his surroundings intruded. The children. The sun. The mist that had clotted his brain was finally clearing. The hope of planning his own death was somehow bringing him back. Yes, he would finally go home. And there, he would die. He got to his knees and stared up at the cobalt expanse above him. A forlorn penitent, he prayed; “Momma, please don’t let me fail this last chance to make it right.”
Suddenly, his vision focused on a nearby figure and his eyes blazed with shock. He fell backwards, gasping. He had asked, and like a beacon from the mist, his mother had answered. There, in front of him, was the beginning, the start of it all.
Ten years ago, he had killed Jenny Staten. He had held the rope taut while she had struggled and died. He had soaked up her life’s essence as it had leaked slowly out of her pores. And he had made his Momma better. Only now, somehow, some way, Jenny had come back from the dead. His Momma had spoken. This was his sign. Jackson was being granted another chance, and never would he let it slip through his fingers again.
While he’d had his face buried in his blanket, another family had set their picnic up next to him. He now watched as less than ten feet from him, Jenny stood giggling. She pulled a slender arm backwards and then arced a Frisbee gracefully through the sky towards a man and a young boy waiting forty or so feet away. Her golden hair hung down her back in sweeping strands, her beautiful smile gleamed, and her cornflower blue eyes sparkled. Jackson watched her silently, his heart pounding in his chest, his mind reeling. He totally ignored the woman in the blue dress beside him; dishing out sandwiches and potato salad onto cheap paper plates as she lounged casually on a bright, patch-work quilt and hummed wordlessly to herself in some soft, lowing tune. He heard and saw none of it – he only had eyes for the girl.
The man who was throwing the Frisbee to Jenny yelled something to her now, calling her “Brittany”. For a second, Jackson was seized with doubt. But then she threw back her head and laughed and the sun glinted off her shiny hair and the surety invaded him once again. Peace was instantly restored. Against all odds, Jenny had returned to him. And for only the second time in his whole pathetic life, Jackson knew without hesitation exactly what he must do.
*
Jackson’s hands were shaking and sweat was dripping off his forehead and stinging his tired eyes. He clenched them closed and rubbed at them distractedly. When he opened them again a moment later, his eyes were so dry he fancied he could actually hear his lids scraping across their desiccated surfaces. It had been seventy-four hours since he’d slept; nearly ten days since he’d first seen Jenny in the park. He had waited so patiently for this very moment, he forced himself to relish it now; soaking it deeply into the crevices of his fractured, aching heart; slowly healing him from the inside out.
Jenny was lying on the bed, the rope knotted so tightly about her pale white throat that it had carved a furrowed trench into her flesh. He had felt her struggle and fight, had listened to her beg and plead, and had looked into her eyes at the exact moment that her life had finally bled agonizingly away. The pleasure it had given him was indescribable; the relief was immense. It had taken him to incredible, unbelievable heights, and only now did he feel himself slowly drifting back to earth once again. As the joy washed out of him, he felt fulfilled, yet strangely empty at the same time. His arms and legs felt heavy, and his eyes began to grow dim. Jackson drove away his all-engulfing exhaustion with effort. The deed was blessedly done-with, and he was now anxious to receive his reward.
Jenny’s golden hair caught shafts of light from the bare bulb overhead and shone like spun wheat against the smudged pillowcase. Her blue eyes were open, fixed. Her vile soul was finally gone. Jackson pushed himself off of her, needing to separate himself fully from the filthiness he was sure she still harbored somewhere deep within. His sweaty skin stuck to hers as he got up on his forearms and then pulled himself out of her, cringing all the while. A shudder ran down his spine as he looked at her laying there – subdued, crushed, defeated. It was half from utter revulsion, and half from delirious, indubitable glee. He turned his back on the trash as he sat up on the edge of the bed and stared out into the darkness beyond the window panes. The gravid moon looked ready to give birth. An owl hooted amongst the trees.
Jackson took a deep breath. “Momma, it’s done,” he called out to the silent room, anxiously awaiting his special sign. Surely, now that he had made it up to her, she would have to forgive him. Just like she had done the last time. She would somehow find her way back to him through the darkness and the void, and then she would finally be his once more. But Jackson’s own hollowed-out, ragged voice was all that echoed around him, before a desolate silence re-enveloped his ears.
“MOMMA!” he shrieked, panicked, but there was nothing at all in return. The feeling of peace was ripped away, and the torment immediately encroached back upon his soul. Had he found his way to redemption, only to somehow fail yet again? When he had so fortuitously seen Jenny in the park, he had assumed that it was his mother speaking to him – letting him know exactly what it was he must do. But now, the girl’s pathetic body lay there on the soiled sheets behind him, and yet he was still alone.
Had he been mistaken all along? Or was this only the beginning of the penance for his sins? What lengths would he have to go to before his mother would finally be saved for all eternity?
An answer slowly came to him as he sat there silently on the damp, dank bed. Before, he had wanted to go home to join his mother – to give up and lay down and die. But that was when he had seen her. When Mother had shown him who Jenny was hiding inside of now. Suddenly, he saw the path to his salvation. He must go there instead to finish this. Home was where it had started. And home was where it must end.
He glanced over his shoulder and focused dimly on the cold piece of flesh on the bed. However Jenny had come to be inside this girl, she had moved on. He was undeniably sure of that now. Just as she had moved on from her death ten years ago to come back to haunt him now. He needed only to find her yet again. And then sooner or later, if he killed her enough times, maybe then his mother could finally be free. Tomorrow, first thing, he would pack. But tonight, there was still work to be done.
The priest’s outfit was lying on the chair against the far wall. It had been quite useful; allowing him to watch the girl without being noticed and helping him to lure her easily into his car. Even though the risks he was taking had made his skin crawl, he had waited until she’d made it almost all the way to the school before taking her - that way she’d had no problem associating him with the authority there.
Then he’d stopped her and asked her to help him carry in some bibles from his car. Bibles. The irony of it was not lost on him. When they’d gotten to his car and there were no bibles in the trunk, he’d told her he must have left them at the church around the corner. He had asked her to ride with him to get them, and couldn’t believe how readily she had agreed.
Jackson looked over at the lone wooden rocker, where the long black coat, pressed black pants, and white cleric’s collar were all draped carefully over one arm. He didn’t relish wearing them again, but he figured he’d use this valuable resource at least one last time. It would be easier to dump the body dressed like that, strangely enough. People never expected a priest to be doing anything wrong, and even if someone saw him and reported him, people would remember the religious attire much more than his face. It was truly a great disguise, but he’d always been good at his chosen deceptions. He rubbed his eyes one more time and then he stood up and stretched. His shoulder muscles were bunching and his neck felt as tight as piano wire. He cracked his knuckles and then plodded heavily across the worn wooden planks, heading across the small room and into the bathroom in the hall.
Jackson flicked on the light and then hunched over the stooped porcelain sink and splashed some lukewarm well water across his face. He was, he realized with a bit of numb curiosity, so thirsty he was nearly nauseous, so he began to greedily slurp some out of his cupped palms. But the water was acrid and musty and tasted something like a sulfurous mushroom. He spit the fungal-flavored fluid into the sink, shut off the spigot, then stood up and looked at himself in the mirror as he wiped his face against the inside of his elbow to dry it off.
He’d half-expected to see himself as he was ten years ago, after he’d killed Jenny for the very first time. But he was no longer a trembling, nervous, stuttering child, as he had been before that night. No, today he was a man. The things that had for so long defined him, no longer applied to him now. Killing that bitch had gradually given him the power to overcome his fears, and from that moment forward, he’d gotten stronger and stronger without ever once looking back. But in high school he had been so careless, so stupid, so reckless. It had been a sheer amazement that he hadn’t gotten caught. For days and weeks after, every knock at the door he’d expected to be the police, ready to shoot him dead. He hadn’t cared one bit. Even if they’d have caught him and put him in prison for the rest of his life – or even gassed him - it still would have been worth it all the while.
But over the years, it had gotten a tad exhausting, as he’d had to be so excruciatingly cautious ever since. He’d even had to avoid government jobs just in case he’d inadvertently left any of his DNA or fingerprints behind. This time he was older and wiser. Things were so much different. The mistakes of his past would be his guide for the future, and if he followed them closely, they would illuminate his way. In the silvery surface Jackson’s light blue eyes grew sharper; more defined. It was as if he’d never truly seen himself before tonight, yet now, somehow he could see right down into his own soul. A muscle under his left eye twitched twice. Time began to stretch and flatten out before him as he stood motionlessly staring at his own image. It was almost as if he could see the minutes and hours and seconds as they began to bend and crumble under his control.
Jackson’s eyes became glazed and unfocused and his head began buzzing like a bowl-full of bees. The sweat dried on his skin, and chill bumps pimpled along his arms and chest. Suddenly, something snapped him out of it. But what? He shook his head and looked into the mirror again and there it was behind him, barely discernible in the gloom of the dim fluorescents: the outline of a cheap shower curtain, hanging above the old claw-footed tub. Slowly, a light clicked on inside him, and Jackson’s razor-thin lips turned up into a sickening smile.
He was ready. It was time to settle things once and for all; to finish his tasks for tonight – and then to finally get started on the long and arduous journey to come.
Chapter 1
September 1st
Brooklyn, NY
Francis Edward Reilly was three beers down and well on his way towards one hell of a bender when he got the initial call. The blackness of his past had been closing in on him for the last few hours, and he had stopped trying to hold it at bay; deciding instead to drink himself into the cushion of oblivion that only alcohol could seem to provide.
When his cellphone rang, startling him, he cursed. He had already taken his home phone off the hook and had meant to turn the damned cell off as well. But, he had been so focused on getting the beers down his throat that he had actually forgotten to do it. Only now, it was ringing. And if he ignored it, he would spend the rest of the day wondering whether or not it had been something important. So he sat there, frozen in place, internally debating whether or not to even answer it. It seemed as if he debated everything these days; mostly whether or not it was worth it to even bother getting out of bed in the morning. The phone was set to seven vibrating chimes before it would roll over to voicemail. He thought for one more moment about just letting it ride, then after the sixth ring, he finally relented; cursing under his breath as he snatched it up off the coffee table.
“What?” his voice was belligerent, but he couldn’t help himself. In contrast, the voice on the other end of the line was soft and regretful. Sorry to have to bother him at home. They all knew that he was still bad off. Only none of them had a clue how bad it truly was. Nearly forty-eight years old now, and all that he had left inside him was rotten to the core. Linda had taken everything good with her when she’d died. Nine months ago, they were supposed to be planning his retirement. Instead, they’d been planning her funeral. At the point in their lives when they were finally supposed to have had all the time in the world to spend together, the only thing he’d had left to look forward to was putting the love of his life into the cold, hard ground and spending the rest of his days alone.
The duty officer was still talking, filling him in on the details. Reilly thought briefly about telling him to go to hell; that it was his day off. But he couldn’t do it. This was a bad one. An awful case. A sixteen year old girl had been abducted the day before, sometime during her morning walk to parochial school. Now, it seemed, she’d turned up dead. They’d found a body matching her description in an alleyway behind Deerfield Park. Despite the fact that he was no longer whole, he was still the best homicide detective they had. He had no choice but to go in.
He got the directions and then stood, staggering a bit as the blood rushed from his head down to his half-numb feet. He’d been sitting in the same place for a couple of hours, and both of his legs had apparently gone to sleep on him. He figured it was a sign of his old age. In less than two weeks he’d be three years older than his own father had ever lived to be, and that fact was not lost on him now.
Frank Reilly Senior had died of a massive heart attack at the ripe old age of forty-five. Ma, who’d lived in Brooklyn from the time she was born until the time she was seventy-one, was now living out her advanced years in a swinging retirement home in Arizona. She liked it there – the desert, the heat, the sun. She said it made her happy. She’d even made quite a few friends; people with whom she could play bridge, go see matinees, and shoot 18 holes of golf. Reilly was glad. He figured it was time for her to have a little fun - God knows in her life, she’d already seen more than enough heartache and pain.
In the bathroom, Reilly splashed cold water on his face and glanced at the mirror hanging above the sink. What he saw there made him cringe. He’d been a shell of a man for too long: the desperation was starting to seep out his pores. He scrubbed some water through his graying crew-cut and rinsed his mouth out with a hearty swig of blue mouthwash. They all knew damn well that he was drinking. But still, he went through the motions.
On the dresser - by his wedding picture and the photo of Linda in the hospital with their baby son - he found his gun, wallet, and badge. He hadn’t touched his weapon since he’d gotten home from work last night. In his state of mind, it was best if he kept it away from immediate reach. In the years when Chris had been young, Linda had insisted on him keeping it locked up. He remembered how much they’d fought over it. How he’d been adamant that the only way to truly make kids safe around a gun was to teach them about it and keep it out in the open instead of locking it away. Nights they had gone to sleep; silent and emotionally bruised, backs turned on each other. How stupid, how futile he saw it to be now. All that wasted time he could have spent in her arms. He had been a fool.
He locked the door to the trim, brick brownstone that they had bought when Chris was just learning how to walk. The once beautiful, once verdant garden that Linda had tended so lovingly was overrun now with ragged weeds. The grass was long and brown. Her rosebushes were dead. He averted his eyes from the vegetational devastation as he walked, focusing his attention instead on the cars parked out by the road and the heat that reflected harshly up at him from the walkway below; scouring his lungs and rolling over his clammy skin in undulating, invisible waves. It was over ninety degrees outside already, and humid as the sixth ring of Dante’s hell. In New York, the cooler fall weather usually didn’t even begin to knock a chink off the oppressive armor of summer until the end of the month at the earliest. Now, the hellish, seasonal heat still had its sweaty grip firmly clutched around the innards of the city.
Reilly cracked his car door and was relieved to find that the plush interior was still somewhat cool and dim. He’d lived in New York all his life, so he was smart enough to have gotten his windows tinted almost black, and to always keep a cardboard cutout across his windshield to block out the blistering rays from the unrelenting sun. He also made it a point to park under the shade of the towering oak tree at the front of their small yard. He climbed in and took the cardboard cutout down now; folding it carefully, and stowing it under his seat. Then he leaned back and plugged his key into the ignition. But as always, before he could even crank the engine, his eyes were helplessly drawn back to the dead garden.
He sat there staring at it for several moments, nearly motionless, until he realized that the air was being sucked out of him by inexorable degrees; pulling his entire being inwards until he feared he might collapse into himself like a deflated balloon. He abruptly straightened himself back up in his seat; his back and neck now as rigid as a marionette whose strings should have been severed long ago. Then he shrugged off the forbidden thoughts with difficulty, fired up the engine, and pulled out into the street. There would be time enough to castigate himself later; when he had the alcohol and the attention that the occasion deserved. For the time being, he had work to do.
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