Free Halloween Candy by Douglas Clegg

This was the Heaven of all heavens. 102

    “No, you being here. Each time is only a glimpse. Like striking a match, it only burns for a short while.”

    “I don’t understand,” Paul said.

    Marie looked up at him, and all he felt was joy. He had never remembered feeling so alive, so much part of the world, so warm with love. Again, his eyes blurred with tears.
    “It’s only a glimpse,” she whispered. “Each time. When Fazzo was executed, he was the sacrifice. But they need another one. This time, they want the sacrifice to be here, on the threshold. It works longer that way. Just one. Each time, for you to be here.”

    Then, her mood changed, as she smiled like a child on his birthday.
    “Oh, but Paul, it’s so wonderful to see you. Next time you come I’ll show you the rivers of gold, and the way the trees whisper the secret of immortality. The birds can guide us across the fire mountains. And I have friends here, too, I want you to meet.”

    “I don’t understand,” Paul whispered, but the rain began coming down harder, and a glass wall of rain turned shiny and then melted, as he felt her hand grab for him through the glass--103

    He was sitting in the darkness of the bathroom at 265, a young woman’s hand in his, cut off at the wrist because the door had come down too hard, too soon.

    11

    For Paul, the hardest one was the first one. He found her down in Brickton, near the factories. She was not pretty, and looked to him to be at the end of her days from drugs and too many men and too many pimps beating her up. She had burn marks on her arms, and when she got into his car, he thought: I won’t be doing anything too awful. Not too awful. It’ll be like putting an animal out of its misery.

    “You a cop?” she asked.

    He shook his head. “No way. I’m just a very desperate guy.”

    He told her he knew this place, an old apartment, not real pretty, but it was private and it got him off. When they reached Swan Street, she laughed. “I been in these apartments before. Christ, they look better now than I remember them.”

    He nodded. “Will you be impressed if I tell you I own them?”
    104

    “Really? Wow. You must be loaded.”

    Paul shrugged. “They went for cheap. The city was going to tear them down, but I got that blocked, bought them up and fixed them up a bit.”

    “They look empty.”

    “Just started getting them ready for tenants,” he said.

    They went upstairs, the green lights of the hallway like haloes around her red hair. Inside the apartment, he offered her a drink.

    “All right,” she said.

    “Need to use the bathroom?” he asked, opening the freezer door to pull out the ice tray.

    “If you don’t mind,” she said.

    “Go ahead. Take a shower if you feel like it.”

    “Well, you’re buying,” the woman said.

    When he heard the bathroom door close, he went and took the key from the dresser. Standing in front of the bathroom door, he waited until he heard the shower turn on.

    He checked his watch.
    105

    It was two minutes to midnight.

    From the shower, she shouted, “Honey? You mind bringing my drink in and scrubbing my back?”

    He drew opened the bathroom door. Steam poured from under the shower curtain. When he was inside the bathroom, he turned and locked the door. He put the key in his breast pocket.

    “That you?” she asked.

    “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll join you in just a few seconds.”

    He crouched down. Beneath the sink, a large wooden box. Opening it, he lifted the cloth within. He grabbed the hand-ax and then closed the box.

    He set the small ax on top of the sink. He unbuttoned his shirt, and took it off. He hung it on the hook by the door. Then, he stepped out of his shoes. Undid his belt, and let his trousers fall to the floor.

    “Baby?” she asked.

    “In a minute,” he said. “We’ll have some fun.”

    Pulling off his socks, and then his briefs. Grabbing the hand-ax. Looking at himself naked in the mirror, ax in fist.