Stormbreak (The Serenity Strain Book 1) Page 7

“All right, man. Stay safe. Hey …” Mark turned away from Lauryn and Megan, who were sitting in the living room, and walked down the hall toward the bedroom. “Is Iris around?” he whispered. He hated himself for doing that. Cat/bag, horse/barn, choose your metaphor. But, he guessed, he should be discrete for Megan’s sake. Who’re you kidding? a voice in his head snarked at him. You just don’t want to piss me off any more than I already am. The voice, of course, was Lauryn’s.

  “Hello?” Mark stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Frank?”

  All he heard was a buzz on the other end of the line. He checked his signal. One bar. And the battery on the phone was nearly dead. Resigned, he powered it down and walked back into the living room.

  “What’s the story?” Lauryn asked.

  “Helen’s coming. No stopping her now. And, apparently, there’s a brand new tropical storm forming in the Gulf.”

  “What? A third storm? How can that be?”

  Megan stopped what she was doing and looked first at her mother, then her father.

  “I don’t know how to answer that question,” said Mark. “It’s unprecedented. Glenn, nothing new. Helen, nothing new, except how fast she’s appeared on Glenn’s heels. Hell, maybe it’s climate change. But when Glenn turned suddenly and now Helen … it’s almost like they were trying to miss New Orleans.”

  “That’s crazy,” said Lauryn. “Hurricanes don’t think.”

  Mark shrugged. “And now Tropical Storm Ilene is a real thing. It’s just f …” He glanced at Megan and remembered a line about practicing and preaching. “It’s friggin’ unprecedented.”

  “Please stop saying that,” said Lauryn. “We all know now it hasn’t happened before. Now, please stop saying that.”

  Mark’s gut instinct was to snap back at her, but he focused on Megan and dialed it back. Ratcheting things up wasn’t going to help anyone right now. He just wished Lauryn would get on that page with him.

  “Hey, can you come back here with me for a minute?” he asked, hooking his thumb at the bedroom down the hall.

  Lauryn cocked an eyebrow. “I have so many responses to that question, I’m not sure where to begin.”

  Mark closed his eyes. “I just want to talk for a second.”

  “Go on, Mom. It’s not like I haven’t heard y’all arguing before,” Megan said, smirking.

  Lauryn wanted to say something to disavow her daughter’s expectation but was just too damned tired. She followed Mark back into the bedroom and he closed the door behind them. She looked around and spotted exactly what she thought she’d find. She breathed through her mouth, just in case.

  “Can we please—until God sees fit to put the world back on an even keel—can we please, just for Megan’s sake, put our crap aside?”

  Mark’s voice sounded so vulnerable and earnest, it took Lauryn completely by surprise. It’d been so long since she’d heard that in his voice—most of their marriage, in fact—that she wasn’t sure how to respond. She didn’t trust it, she knew that much. The panties on the floor reinforced that. She resisted the perverse impulse to pick them up, sniff them, and make the crudest joke she could possibly think of.

  “Lauryn, I know you hate me now. I know you loathe Iris. I know neither one of us ever wanted to be here. But I don’t hate you. Not really. I just want all this,” he said, motioning between them, “to be over. I’m tired of riding the emotional rollercoaster. I just want us both to move on with our lives.”

  “You left me for that slut you work with,” Lauryn said, her words steaming. “It seems a little easier for you to move on with your life, now, doesn’t it?”

  Mark nodded. “I understand—”

  “You don’t understand shit. You have no idea how hard it’s been! Single-parenting a teenager? Do you have any clue? No, of course you don’t, Mister Playboy! You’ve been too busy collapsing in bed every night after screwing Iris, while I lie in bed …” She stopped, her voice hitching. “You have no clue.” Lauryn wiped angrily at her eyes.

  Mark reached out for her, but she pulled away.

  “Keep your Iris-fucking hands off me.”

  Outside, thunder grumbled from the south. They both glanced at the window as a slight wind began to sprinkle it with rain.

  “I know you’re angry—”

  “Ya think?”

  “But—listen to me, Lauryn. Right now, there’s a second hurricane on the way. A third might be days out. This has never happened before. You remember what happened in New Orleans after Katrina?”

  She nodded curtly, half hearing him, trying to suck the tears back into her eyes by force of will. She hated showing him how much she still cared about the marriage. How much dealing with him at a distance still hurt her, as if he were still in her heart.

  “Think of that times three, then compounded with interest.”

  Now he had her attention. “You’re just trying to scare me. Scare us. If this is some kind of ploy to take over primary custody—”

  Mark grabbed her shoulders, ignored her affronted stare, her outrage at his touching her.

  “Listen to me. Society is about to go to shit. You think the aftermath from Katrina was bad? A few looters and poor people drowning and cops shooting people for stealing candy bars? That’s fucking Mardi Gras compared to what’s coming. You have to listen to me!”

  He could feel her relax in his grip. Was he finally getting through?

  “We have to get prepared, Lauryn. You can hate me tomorrow. Today, we have to work together. For Megan. Please.”

  Then her armor of anger seemed to melt away. “It’s really going to be that bad?”

  He relaxed his grip on her shoulders. “Worse. I’m afraid it’s going to be worse.”

  The thunder outside rolled, longer this time, echoing like a reflection of the past itself, captured with sound. It rumbled beneath the dark clouds advancing north from the coast. She glanced again at the window and saw that night had fallen, and rather suddenly. There was no moon.

  “Jesus. We have to protect Megan. Mark, we have to—”

  “Yes. We do,” he said. He brought her to his chest cautiously, without force. “I’m so glad now you guys came here. I’m so glad.”

  She hugged him back, her arms tight with fear.

  Chapter 7. Saturday, early morning.

  Marsten lay on the gurney, listening to the monkeys in the madhouse. It’d been six hours since the staff last checked on him. Between the still-gusting hurricane and the lockdown, apparently someone had missed a duty shift. And now he was almost fully awake. He lay there, unusually calm given recent events. Maybe it was the residual effect of his last dose of the tranquilizer cocktail. Whatever. He took the opportunity to get his bearings.

  In the past, the wee hours of the morning had always been his favorite time for contemplation. It was quiet after the witching hour in prison. Even the looniest in general pop were worn out and snoring by then. For years he’d lain in his bunk until three or four in the morning reliving the night he’d axed that family a question.

  He always chuckled at that joke. It never got old.

  Then Stavros arrived a couple of months ago with his get-out-of-death free card. Sticking a needle in his neck beat sticking one in his arm all to hell, so Marsten became the college boy’s lab rat. Ran in the spinning wheel for him. Walked his maze in search of cheese.

  Though Stavros denied it was possible, Marsten had felt the little bugs working inside him, like worms crawling under his skin. The virus delivering its payload. When Marsten told him about the wormy feeling, Stavros joked that his test subject was just slipping into his new genes, that the creepy-crawlies were just Marsten’s imagination. The lab rat-inmate had almost come across the table at the self-important prick right then and there.

  But over time, Marsten noticed a change. His mind became calmer. He’d begun to fall asleep at a regular hour. At first, he’d missed his wee-hours ritual of reliving what he called his masterpiece of murder. But eventually, he’d gotten used to
its absence and slept through the night. Interactions with guards became smoother. They’d even put him on the basketball court in the central yard once or twice, and while the other inmates steered clear of him still, Marsten hadn’t wanted to rip their heads off and drink the blood from their skulls. So—a change for the better, he mused.

  Then about a week and a half ago, he’d begun waking up in the wee hours again, but now with nightmares. In them, he was the victim, not the attacker. Each of the family members took turns at him with the axe, like fraternity members initiating a pledge.

  Whack.

  Off went his left arm.

  Whack.

  Off went his right.

  Each time one of his victims hacked at him, he’d feel the excruciating pain of it, but then simply stare dumbly at his missing limb as a seemingly endless supply of blood pumped onto the floor.

  Whack.

  Off went his left leg.

  Whack.

  Off went his right.

  Then he’d fall hard to the floor, smashing his penis and testicles beneath the heavy weight of his torso. The little girl in the family—the ten-year-old he’d pulled from beneath her bed before he quartered her with his dulling weapon—took the dream-axe now from her mother as the entire family stood around him and laughed at him as he shrieked his pain. The little girl pulled back the axe and, with a force too great for her size, cut off his screaming head. He even felt the impact on his skull when it hit the red floor.

  He always awoke from the nightmares covered in sweat. Marsten suffered that very same dream, experienced those very same events, every night for a week. Until Wednesday night. The night before Stavros came to see him for their weekly check-up. That night was different. All that evening, he’d felt more like his old self. Hyper-aware, like he knew something the mere mortals around him didn’t.

  In light of his recent behavioral improvements, prison officials had let him eat together with the general population. At dinner Wednesday, he’d almost brained a fellow inmate with his metal tray for merely looking in his direction. The other man hadn’t looked at him funny, or mean, or even sideways. He’d just stared at him for half a second longer than Marsten liked. It’d taken every mental muscle Marsten had to restrain himself.

  He really hadn’t given a hoot in hell what might happen if he’d started a riot in the cafeteria. But a part of him still feared the little girl with the axe. Could see her there, a smile he’d worn himself when he’d done the deed stretching across her little angelic face. Even as he sat on a bench spooning creamed corn into his mouth, he could feel the moment of vertigo from the dream when he crashed to the floor with no arms or legs, the brutal pain in his groin.

  Sitting at the table that evening with the hubbub of chow time conversation around him, Marsten felt rage percolating inside him. He felt the need to smell blood on his hands. He felt fear of action, as if acting on the impulse to kill again might bring the little girl back with her axe. But for real, this time, as an axe-wielding ghost looking for payback. Mostly, he’d just felt angrily confused.

  He’d spent Wednesday night tossing and turning in his bunk, alone in his cell. They didn’t trust him enough yet to give him a cellmate. Probably wise, he thought as he now remembered his boiling restlessness from that night.

  He’d listened as the prison bedded down for the night. His internal clock counted off the seconds, minutes, and hours. He’d feared going to sleep. He’d feared the little girl who’d stolen his smile and his axe. He’d feared the pain of his genitals crushed beneath his own weight.

  But then, as if a blanket were being pulled over him to warm him from the cold, he’d begun to remember the events of his murder spree. Watching the house after dusk. Seeing the shadows behind the windows as the family did its family business. Homework. Dinner. TV time. Arguments from the children over bedtime. Admonitions from the parents that it must be so. The light thumping of the parents’ bed until almost midnight, after they were sure the children were asleep. The quiet sound of crickets as the house itself seemed to shut its window-eyes. Finding the axe in the shed in the backyard.

  As each moment of memory returned to him, Marsten calmed down. His fear of the little girl evaporated, replaced with an aching need in his groin. Not the crushing pain from the nightmare, but a primal ache driving him to murder them again. His need surrounded him like a bloody bath, soothing his muscles, easing his mind. And in the wee hours of Wednesday night, after the restlessness and then the calm, he’d proceeded to relive every moment again. Smiling now that the axe was back in his hands. Feeling their fear again. Hearing their screams in his mind’s ear. A perfect recall of the event, relived and slowed down to savor the best moments.

  The next day brought the conversation with Stavros. It was like his old wolf self had slipped into his new sheep’s clothing, just for the fun of it. To see if he could pull it off. Since then, Marsten’s rage had grown inside him. Rage at being incarcerated for doing what came naturally to him. Rage at Stavros for sticking worms in his brain that screwed him up for over a month. Rage at God for sparking him into life.

  Lightning flashed through the windows in the corridor outside the infirmary. It was followed by a loud clap of thunder that shook the walls. The cell doors rattled in their hinges. The monkeys hooted in their cages. And Marsten got an idea.

  A second flash and answering boom. He counted the seconds between them. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three—

  Flash. Another two-and-a-half seconds.

  BOOM.

  Part of Marsten questioned the plan. A small, unsure voice that remembered the excruciating pain of recent nightmares. He grunted once, curling his lip, and snuffed it out.

  He began to squirm on the gurney.

  Flash.

  One Mississippi.

  He shifted all his body weight first right, then left.

  Two Mississippi.

  Marsten felt the gurney’s wheels on the right side come off the floor. He turned his head, closing his eyes.

  As the thunder boomed, the gurney crashed onto its side, pinching Marsten’s left arm between the metal and the floor. But he’d protected his head, and that’s really all that mattered. He jerked at his arms and legs, realized he was still completely bound. Only now, he was hanging in the straps, with his left side near the floor.

  “Now what, dumbass?” he said to the room. The rigid leather of the straps squeezed off the blood flow through his wrists and ankles. He wondered how long he’d be able to feel his hands and feet.

  “Wait. That works both ways, don’t it?”

  The tranquil feeling of old bloomed in his mind. The centering he’d felt in his soul when he’d first retrieved that axe from the shed. An absolute confidence—as if he could see the future—that he knew exactly, precisely what was about to happen. Because it was meant to happen that way.

  Marsten shifted all his body weight to the left, pulling against the straps, trying to get even closer to the floor. The leather dragged at his right wrist and ankle, but he could feel the leather stretching. He flexed his right arm more, his fingers reaching, mere inches away from the left cuff.

  Lack of blood was starting to numb his straining right hand. Marsten ground his teeth. He could feel the veins in his bald head bloating the skin. Extending the fingers of his left hand, he flexed every muscle he possessed toward the singular purpose of freedom.

  “Come on …” he grunted.

  The little girl appeared in his mind. She was holding his axe. Smiling his smile. Her teeth covered in blood.

  He ignored her.

  Another half an inch closer. Surely the leather strap holding his right arm must be close to breaking. But he knew better. Knew there was no chance of that.

  Lightning raced across the skies beyond the prison’s walls. Thunder crashed three seconds later and with it, Marsten screamed as loud as he’d screamed in his dream, right before the axe fell.

  The fingers of his right hand brushed, then lost the cuff
binding his left. He tried to pull his hands together, as a bound martyr might attempt prayer before burning at the stake.

  Fingertips on the buckle’s strap, now. Skin caressing leather.

  Marsten embraced the belief of the insane that he could bend reality to his will purely by desiring its compliance. He ignored the pain from the restraints, less now that his extremities were numb. He dared the veins in his head to burst from his skin. It all gave him an extra inch.

  Fumbling with numb fingers, Marsten worked methodically to get the strap from the buckle. Each tug pulled a shorter breath from his lungs. He freed the inner strap from the metal lip, pulled it toward him. He watched the buckle’s tongue release with the same drooling anticipation he’d felt when he pulled the little girl screaming from beneath her bed.

  The strap released. He shot his arm out of it, reached up to a right wrist he could no longer feel, and easily released the buckle restraining it.

  Marsten’s upper body fell to the floor. He flexed his core, pulled himself up, grabbed the buckle of the right foot strap holding him in the air. When he’d loosened that, he tumbled to the floor. A twist, a quick release of his left foot, and he pushed the gurney behind him, victorious.

  He lay on the floor, gasping, the blood seeping back into his hands and feet. Thunder rolled in the distance. The storm was moving away. Marsten laughed at the thought.

  “On the contrary,” he said, his cheek, sopping wet with sweat, pressed against the cold prison floor. Drool pooled from the side of his mouth. “The storm has just arrived.”

  He was free.

  * * *

  Sitting in his empty office in the infirmary, Stavros stared at the ceiling above him. Helen battered Huntsville State Prison. He thought he could hear the razor wire lining the walls warble and shimmy like a backwoods band using a saw for an instrument. The winds howled as they gusted around the concrete structure. Its cinder-block walls and steel bars seemed to invite the moaning inside the prison’s deserted corridors. Inmates, bored and frightened in their cells, added their own hoo-doo cries to the mournful gale. The winds would rise, echoing around the bare walls, and the inmates would answer like wolves baying at the moon.