Borderlands 3 Read online

  The man in black drove to the gateway and stopped the jeep. He looked at Catherine. "He will not harm cripples. He will see you, and he will let you live. He will kill the others. There is nothing anyone can do. Nothing I can do. Nothing you can do. But he will leave you alone, he will let you live because of your affliction."

  Catherine pressed her left hand to her mouth. She thought she felt the phantom right hand pressing her heart.

  "Go, then," said the man. Catherine dragged herself out, holding to the door so she would not drop to the dirt. "Say your prayers, sister. The Lord has been with you."

  The jeep made a sharp turn and then rattled off into the darkness.

  Catherine watched as it vanished down the knoll. And in the spector of its ghost-image, she saw the face of Christ.

  Witch Hunt by Andrew Vachss

  What can you say about a guy as downright interesting as Andrew Vachss? Not only is he a Manhattan lawyer who specializes in cases concerning child abuse, but he is also the creator of the most intriguing "hero" in dark crime fiction—a shadowy, clever guy named Burke. Andrew's novels include Strega, Blue Belle, Hard Candy, and the recent bestseller,Sacrifice; but he is also building a large body of short fiction that has the speed of bantamweight and the power of a heavy. He has earned my respect as both a writer and a genuine square-business friend. His stories often peel back the onion-skin layers of his characters' tortured psyches. "Witch Hunt" is no exception.

  1

  The first time I heard a message, I couldn't obey. I could hear it, but I was distant from it, the way I am from people talking. They think I can't hear them, but I can—I just can't get close enough to say anything.

  The messages don't come from inside my head, no matter what the doctors say.

  I was small when I first heard them. I couldn't do anything to stop them. Any of them. The people, I mean, not the messages. I can stop people, sometimes, but I would never stop the messages.

  2

  No matter how much I screamed, my parents would still leave me with her. They acted like they didn't understand, because I couldn't talk then.

  By the time I could talk, I was too scared.

  3

  Ellen burned me. Just to show me she could do it. My babysitter. She was in charge when my parents would go out. Sometimes she would beat me. Spanking, she called it. She would do it real hard until I would cry. Then she would tell me I was a good boy.

  She showed me how to do what she wanted. If I didn't do it, she would hurt me. Sometimes she hurt me anyway. She liked to do it. She would get all sweaty and close her eyes. Later she would laugh.

  4

  My parents liked her. My mother told my father he only liked her because she wore her blue jeans so tight you could see her panties right through them. My father got red in the face and said how reliable she was. My mother said how hard it was to get anyone to watch me.

  Ellen made me lick her. And she put things inside me too. When I got older, she took pictures of me.

  She said if I ever told, they wouldn't believe me. And then she'd get me good the next time.

  Cut out my heart and eat it.

  Sometimes Ellen wore a mask. Sometimes she burned things that smelled funny.

  Her eyes could cut me and make me bleed.

  She had a tattoo inside her leg. On the high, fat part where her legs came together. A red tattoo of a cross, like in church. The cross was upside down. Where it would go into the ground, it went inside of her.

  5

  I told on her. One night, just before my parents were going to go out. I was five years old and I could talk. I was so scared I wet all over myself, but I told.

  They looked at each other—I've seen them do that a lot, ever since I started watching them. But when Ellen came over, they told her they weren't going out that night and she could go back to her house.

  Ellen looked right at them. Right in their eyes. "Is Mark telling his crazy stories again?"

  "What stories?" my mother asked her.

  "His Devil stories, I call them. He told me his kindergarten teacher was a monster. How she wore this mask and carried fire in her hand. It must be that cable TV. My Dad won't let me watch it."

  I could see it happening. I screamed so loud something broke in my eyes. Then I couldn't see anything.

  6

  They put me in a hospital. A lady came to see me. She was very nice. She smelled nice too. She came a lot of times. Every day.

  After a while, I could see again.

  I wouldn't talk to the nice lady at first, but she promised me Ellen could never get me. I was safe.

  So I told her. I told her everything. She said she would fix it. Everything would be all right.

  When they came back a couple of weeks later, they had the nice lady with them. She sat down on the bed next to me and held my hand. She said they looked at Ellen. Without her clothes on. And there was no red tattoo like I said. It must be my imagination, the lady said. She had a sad face when she said it.

  I knew it then. She was with Ellen.

  I was already screaming when they showed me that first needle.

  7

  I was in the hospital a long time. Sometimes my parents would come in there with the lady I thought was nice. After I took my pills I would get dreamy. But I wouldn't sleep, not really. Just lie there with my eyes closed and listen to them.

  "We could get sued," my father said. "Ellen's father hired a lawyer. He said false allegations happen all the time. A witch hunt, he called it."

  It scared me, the way he said it. I didn't look.

  8

  They tested me, to see if I was stupid. When they found out I wasn't, then they said I was crazy. I had to talk to a doctor. I told him about the messages. He was the first one. He said they came from inside my head. I told him "No!" and he pushed a button and some big men in white coats came in.

  Later, they started the drugs. Haldol. Thorazine. All kinds of things. I learned to take the pills. Otherwise, it was the needle.

  Some of the attendants, they gave you the needle anyway, even if you were good. They liked to do it. But it was the nurse who gave the orders. She was with Ellen.

  9

  They let me go home sometimes. My mother would make me take the medication. I got older and older, but it didn't make any difference. I still had to do what they said.

  I cost a lot of money. I heard them talking. A lot of money.

  "Paranoid schizophrenic," my mother would say. What the doctors told her, like a religion.

  Ellen's picture was in the paper. Her father was arrested for having sex with his daughter. A little girl. Nine years old. I was eleven then, and I could read good. Ellen's picture was in the papers because she told on her father.

  In the paper, they said Ellen was a hero. For saving her sister.

  When I asked my mother about Ellen, she slapped me. Then she started crying. She said it wasn't my fault—I was born this way. I knew she meant the messages. Then she called the hospital and they came and took me away.

  10

  The medication has side effects. I know what they call it. Tardive dyskinesia. My face jumps around. My whole body twitches. My mouth is so dry it's like it is stuffed with cotton. My hands shake. I'm dizzy. My stomach is upset. I hate it.

  When I stop taking the pills, they give me the needles.

  They never catch me not taking the pills. It's just that I act different without them. And they can tell.

  Act. That was a message I got all the time. Act!

  11

  I'm an out-patient now. I live in a room. My parents moved away. I don't know where. I'm an adult now. Twenty-three years old.

  I get a check. From the Government. Every month. It comes to where I stay. I pay my room rent. I eat in restaurants, but I don't eat that much. I'm not hungry much.

  There is a television set in my room. I always leave it on. Messages come through it for me.

  I don't take the medication very often, but I
act like I am. Nobody looks that close.

  12

  They send you cues. That's the message, to watch for the cues. I go out, looking. The subways are the best. There's all kinds of crazy people in the subways. People never look at me that way. I look right. I'm careful.

  I look carefully. At everything, I look. There's a third rail. It's death to touch it. If you look down, down into the pit, you can see the other tracks. Water runs between the tracks, like a river. You can see the things people throw there. Sometimes you can see a rat, watching up at the people.

  The messages are everywhere, but they are never spoken. Not out loud. They come through things.

  You have to watch them from behind because their eyes can burn you.

  The first time, in the subway, the train came through the tunnel. Shoving through, too tight for the tunnel, like Ellen did to me. When the train screamed, I knew I was in the right place.

  From behind, they look alike unless you look close. If you can see their panties, the outline of their panties, under their skirts or their slacks, then that's them. That's how you know them.

  The first time I saw that, the train was screaming in. I was close behind her in the crowd. When I pushed her, she went right under the wheels. Then everybody screamed like the train.

  Nobody ever said anything to me.

  13

  The message comes to me anytime. Especially in my room, where the medication doesn't block the signals. When I hear the message clear, I go out. To do my work.

  I'm on a witch hunt.

  The Owen Street Monster by J. L. Comeau

  Most of the time, when we're reading submissions, and find a story we think we might want to buy—I usually put it in a stack of "possibles" for a second or third reading. If I still like it as much the second or third time around, it makes the Contents page. But every now and then, a story just simply zaps me with its energy and its narrative punch. When Elizabeth handed me "The Owen Street Monster," saying "This one is great—we have to buy it!", I knew we had one of those instant winners. It seethes with a just-beneath-the-surface vileness that I simply love. If Judy Comeau keeps turning out concise, powerful little barbs like this, she's going to make a name for herself as a real master of the short form.

  (connect)

  "Hi, Addie? It's Janine. I just wanted to call and tell you how sorry I am about your loss and let you know I'm here for you if you need anything. Anything at all. God, it's difficult, I know, but really, Addie, you have to go on for the sake of the other children, and... Well..."

  Sigh. "Yes, Janine. Thank you so much. I saw you at the funeral yesterday, but I just couldn't—"

  "Oh, honey, I understand. We all assumed you'd been given a tranquilizer. You hardly seemed to know where you were. God, Addie, it was so terrible for you, I know."

  "No one can know what it's like until they've lost one of their own. I—it's unnatural to bury a child. It should have been David burying me, don't you see? He was only a baby. Six years old. Just six."

  "Please don't cry, Addie. You still have Sherman, Jr. and little Melody. They need you to be strong now. Think of them."

  "I know you're right, Janine. Thank heaven school started last week. I don't think I could have held out any longer. Poor little David... I, oh... God."

  "Oh, Addie, Addie. You poor, poor darling. Try to be courageous for the others. They need your strength, and you're a very strong woman; we all know you are. And remember, if there's ever anything I or any of the other girls on Owen Street can do to help you through this terrible ordeal, we're here for you. Do you hear me? We-are-here-for-you."

  "God bless you, Janine. And thank you for all the food you and the girls brought over to the house. I don't know what I would have done—"

  "It was nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. You just take good care of yourself, Addie. We love you. Remember that."

  "Oh, Janine..."

  "Look, honey, I can tell you're a wreck. Go ahead now, get yourself a nice glass of wine and settle down for Oprah. Today she's having on women who've lost their limbs to accidents."

  "Arms and legs, you mean?"

  "Yes. Can you imagine? Well, look, it's almost four, so I'm going to let you go now."

  "Janine?"

  "What, hon?"

  "Thanks."

  "Oh, hush. Bye now."

  "Bye bye."

  (disconnect)

  ▼

  (connect)

  "Hello, Samantha?"

  "Yeah. Janine?"

  "Yeah."

  "Did you see Oprah today? The one about women who've lost their limbs?"

  "Yes. Wasn't that bizarre? What are you making for dinner tonight? I can't come up with a thing."

  "Oh, Christ. I guess I'll nuke some chicken and boil up some Rice-a-Roni. Maybe I'll just call out for pizza. Tell you the truth, Janine, this maternity leave is about to kill me. I can't wait to get back to work. The kid screams twenty-four hours a day, Jack's whining for tail all the time, and I—"

  "Listen, Sam. I talked to Addie Wilmer this afternoon."

  "What?"

  "Don't get crazy. I just called her to see how she's getting along."

  "What did she say?"

  "Well, she's grief-stricken, of course. Who wouldn't be after losing a child?"

  "Janine, I think we ought to just leave Addie alone."

  "Look, Sam, we all live on Owen Street. We're going to be seeing Addie for a long time. She's our neighbor, after all."

  "Maybe if we just cut her off, you know, give her the cold shoulder, she'll move away. We could—"

  "No, no. That wouldn't work. We don't want to do that. Addie's a good neighbor, Samantha."

  "But that kid. That David."

  "David's gone, Samantha. He's not a problem any more."

  "Yeah. Okay, I guess you're right, Janine. But I just feel so weird with Addie being right down the block. You know?"

  "I know, I know. But listen. That boy is gone, so try to be friendly to Addie and her other kids. Please. It means so much. You're my very closest friend, Samantha. I know you can do it."

  "Well... All right, Janine. I'll try."

  "Promise?"

  "Promise."

  "So how's your sex life, Sammy? Jack keeping you on your back?"

  Laugh. "Naw. I'm keeping him on his."

  Laugh. "Good for you. Gotta go."

  "Right. See ya."

  "Bye."

  (disconnect)

  ▼

  (connect)

  "Nicole?"

  "Yes?"

  "Janine."

  "Oh, hi, Janine. I was just thinking about you."

  "We do seem to have some sort of mental connection, don't we?"

  "Yes, we truly do. It's uncanny, isn't it? Sometimes I know exactly what you're going to say just before you say it."

  "It's the most extraordinary thing. I've heard that best friends like us sometimes develop a kind of telepathy."

  "Really? Where did you hear that?"

  "Donahue or Geraldo, I guess. I can't remember. It's a fact, though."

  "Did you see Oprah yesterday? Women without limbs?"

  "Yes. Weird, huh? Today she's having on people who mutilate themselves to relieve stress."

  "You are kidding."

  "Nope. Not to change the subject, Nicole, but I was talking to Samantha yesterday and she's getting a little nuts about this Addie Wilmer thing."

  "About the dead kid, you mean."

  "Well, not so much that as she's uncomfortable about facing Addie."

  "Samantha is such a wimp."

  "Really. But we've got to convince her that developing an attitude against Addie at this point would only be counterproductive and possibly detrimental to everyone concerned."

  "Samantha is such a dumb bitch."

  "Yes, I know, but I'm counting on you to help Sam through this, Nicole. We all have to help her. Remember, we're only as strong as our weakest link."

  "Yeah, I guess we're stuck with her now
."

  "Yes, Nicole. We are."

  "Okay, I'll talk to her, but I've got to go now, Janine. The kids are raising red hell out in the back yard. Christ, I'll be so glad when they're old enough for school. Oh shit, I think one of them's bleeding."

  "Go ahead, then, Nicole. And remember, be nice to Samantha. We've all got to help her over the hump."

  "I will, I will. Gotta go, Janine. Jason is beating Michelle to a pulp."

  "Okay, go ahead. Bye."

  (disconnect)

  ▼

  (connect)

  "Janine?"

  "Hilary?"

  "Janine, I've got to talk to you."

  "What's the matter?"

  "What's the matter? Are you kidding?"

  "Hilary, you sound terrible."

  "I'm scared, Janine. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I—"

  "Hilary. Honey. I'm surprised at you. You were the one who started this whole thing in the first place, remember? You were the one who convinced us all that we had to do it. And you were right, Hilary. One hundred percent right. What's going on?"

  "Jesus, I don't know. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I read all the wrong conclusions into totally innocent behavior. Maybe—"

  "Maybe nothing. You were right. You just have a case of the jitters. It'll pass. I promise. Be strong. Just be strong for a little while and it'll pass."

  "I don't know, Janine. I'm losing it. I'm really losing it."

  "That child was a monster, Hilary. David Wilmer was a monster. Every one of us saw the signs. All the newspapers and magazines confirmed our suspicions, remember?"

  "But those newspapers were tabloids, not the Washington Post or New York Times."

  "It was in black and white, Hilary: craves attention, unaffected by punishment, cruelty to animals, setting fires, vivid fantasies. David displayed all those deviations."

  "I don't know, Janine, thinking about it now, I don't think any of us ever saw David harm an animal."

  "He was scared to death of animals; it's the same damn thing. It's not natural for a little boy. Remember when Nicole's collie tried to play with David?"

  "Lamby knocked David down."

  "The dog was just playing, for Christ's sake. Boys are supposed to love dogs. David hated animals, you could tell. He would have hurt one if he'd gotten the chance."