Serpent's kiss

On the back porch, autumn winds blowing dead colourful leaves scratching across the screened in windows, he saw something move in a gunny sack his father kept on the back porch for storing walnuts. He had never forgotten what happened next. He knelt down and touched the palm of his hand to the top of the gunny sack He was sure he'd seen the sack move — and then he knew why. Beneath his hand, just under the fabric of the sack, uncoiled a fat writhing snake. He jerked back in panic. He had never been able to forget that odd sensation-the unseen reptile slithering beneath the rough material of the sack

Just as something slithered inside his belly just now. He could feel it coil and uncoil, coil and uncoil.

The image of something inside him made him sick suddenly and he wanted to vomit. But he knew he would have to hold it as long as he was on the bus. Which was why he got off.

Fortunately, the stop at which he left the bus was a forlorn section of taverns and Laundromats and large empty fields filled with rusting deserted cars and hundreds of jagged busted pop bottles and heel-crunched beer cans.

There was an alley between two rotting taverns that seemed to be having a war of country and western jukeboxes.

He ran into the alley just as a Hank Williams, Jr., song came on and he vomited so long he was half afraid he would start seeing blood.

As he stood up, he saw that a skinny, bald guy in a dirty white apron and holding a broom in one hand was watching him.

'Only three o'clock,' the bald, skinny guy said. He was obviously the owner of the tavern.

'What?' he said, pulling the back of his hand across his mouth.

'Only three o'clock. Too goddamned early to start puking.'

And with that, the guy hefted his broom and went back inside.

Twenty minutes later he came to a phone booth. This was on a corner loud with semis and thick with diesel fumes. Faces were mostly black; clothes mostly bright and cheap. The people moved as if they were dragging chains behind them. Somebody had recently pissed in the phone booth. It reeked. And somebody had also smashed his head against the glass of the booth. In a circle of shattered safety glass, you could see splotches of blood and hair. A starved dog, all ribs and crazed brown eyes, stood at his feet smelling the rancid piss.

He called a phone number.

He had no idea what number it was.

A woman answered, 'Hello.'

He said nothing for a time.

'Hello?'

He was afraid to speak.

'It's you, isn't it?'

'I–I don't know your name.'

'They said you might be confused, honey. The electroshock you've had recently and everything.'

'Who are you?'

'You really don't know?'

'No.'

'I'm your wife. Karen.'

'Who am I?'

She paused again. 'Honey, I'm afraid. For you, I mean. You can't walk around in this condition.'

'A while ago I rode by in a bus… I saw a police car there.'

'Two of the detectives came back.'

'They're looking for me.'

'Yes. But you haven't done anything really. Nobody's been hurt. They'd just like to get you back into Hastings House.'

The thing in his stomach shifted again.

'I'm afraid,' he said. 'There's something in my stomach.'

'In your stomach?'

'Yes. Something. There's no other way to describe it.'

'There's something in your stomach?'

'Yes. I know how that must sound but-there is.'

She sighed. 'Honey, can't you see that you really need to go back to Hastings House? They want to help you. They really do.'

'I can't.'

'But why not?'

'I'm not sure.'

A pause again. 'This morning Cindy heard about your escape. While I was in the bathroom, she went into the living room and turned on the set. She saw your picture.'

'Cindy?'

'Our daughter. She's six.'

'My God.'

'She's afraid she'll never see you again. She's been crying all day.'

'I'm sorry. I–I'm just so confused.'

'Won't you let me help you, Richard?'

Richard. So that was his name.

'What's my last name?'

'Oh, darling.'

And then she started to cry.

He couldn't stand the sound of it, her tears. He'd made her cry. And made his daughter cry. Why couldn't he help them, stop running the way she wanted him to, turn himself in?

'I'm sorry,' he said again.

He hung up and left the booth, pushing the dog out on the sidewalk as he did so.

The dog barked at him.

Richard just shook his head and walked away.

4

Rob Lindstrom

May 12, 1989

The third murder was not so easy.

A) The police were looking for him and moving around in the city was dangerous. B) The confusion was getting very bad now. Sometimes he had no idea who or where he was, almost as if he were phasing in and out of a fever dream. C) The thing in his stomach was making him nauseous till the time.

In the bureau he found the same manila envelope with the same photos he had come to dread seeing. They reminded him too much of what he'd done to the two women.

Now there was a new name in the envelope.

Doreen Jackson.

He crumpled it up and threw it in the corner.

He went into the bathroom and barfed.

When he came out he went into the living room and collapsed into the chair.

Sweat beaded his forehead. His teeth were chattering. He was hot and cold. He couldn't decide which.

He kept clamping his hand on his stomach.

The thing inside him kept coiling and uncoiling. He slammed his fist against it.