Bad Juju: A Novel of Raw Terror (7 page)

   “How the hell can he know
anything?” Skeeter fumed. He was pacing a semi-circle about the card table.

Joe Rob sat in brooding silence,
watching his friend’s tiger-like pacing.

“I mean, he’s not a cop anymore,
but that don’t mean shit. He
knows
. I don’t know how he knows, but he
does.”

Joe Rob said, “He knows those
assholes are scoping you out. We already knew that. So what?”

“But how does he know that much?
This is fucked up, man.”

“Cool it, will ya? Don’t get your
bowels in an uproar.”

Skeeter flopped into the chair that
Luke Chaney had, only moments ago, vacated. He tried to calm himself. “All
right. There’s no way he could know what happened to Odell. But he knows he’s
missing and that those Porch cretins are dogging me.” He cracked his knuckles
to keep his hands from fidgeting. “He wants to help us. Maybe we should let
him.”

“He can’t help us. He ain’t even a
cop, not anymore.”

“No, but if we told him what
happened, and that the reason we didn’t go to the police was because we were
afraid that the Porches would kill us—”

“Fuck that! We already agreed, man.
Took a blood oath that we’d never tell. No matter what.”

“Yeah, but—”

“‘But’ my ass. You break a blood
oath, I’ll have to fuck you up.”

“
What?
” Skeeter couldn’t
believe what he’d just heard.

“That’s what happens when you break
the oath. You know that.”

“What’s wrong with you, man? You’re
actually
threatening
me? Your blood brother?”

“That’s the rule.”

“Bullshit. That’s no fucking rule.
You just made that up.”

“Guess we need fresh blood.” Joe
Rob reached across the table and seized Skeeter’s wrist and pinned his hand to
the table. He pulled a pocketknife from his jeans and flicked the blade open
with one hand, then swiped the cutting edge across Skeeter’s wrist. Blood
filled the gash.

With a yelp of surprise, Skeeter
yanked his hand free.

Joe Rob made a similar cut in his
own wrist, then laid his hand palm-up on the card table. “Come on, do it. Touch
cuts.”

“Jeez, you
are
fucking
nuts.”

“Do it, Goddammit! I’m not
playing.” Joe Rob pointed the tip of his knife at Skeeter.

“Fuck you, Joe Rob. Go ahead. Gut
me with that fucking pig sticker. I don’t give a shit. Go ahead, you fucking
psycho. Do it. That’ll solve everything, won’t it?”

Joe Rob came out of his chair,
upended the card table and tossed it aside, then poked the knife against
Skeeter’s belly.

Skeeter didn’t back down. Nose to
nose, they glared at each other for an interminable moment of frozen time.

Then Joe Rob stepped back, almost
casually, folded the blade and jammed the knife back in his jeans pocket. “I
should’ve known you’d wimp out on me,” he sneered. “Fucking pussy. I’ll handle
this shit by myself.”

Joe Rob walked out and slammed the
door.

The slam reverberated with terrible
finality in the echo chamber that was Skeeter’s skull. He knew for the first
time in his life what it meant to be truly alone.

And it terrified him.

***

He woke with a start, his heart
racing as if to flee some imminent threat. He sat up in his bunk and looked
around. Moonlight at the curtained window seeped in around the edges and gave
the darkened room a faint illumination of cold, silvery light.

Skeeter listened closely to the
night, hearing nothing but the humming rattle of the air-conditioner that
washed him with frigid air and the background murmuring of insects. The hair at
the nape of his neck was drenched in sweat.

Must’ve been dreaming. Dreamed I
heard something and woke myself up.

He glanced at the red numerals of
the digital clock on top of the old filing cabinet that served as his bedside table.

1:15 AM.

Shit.

Gotta sleep.

A knot of fear twisted tighter in
his abdomen. A dull pressure behind his eyes signaled an oncoming headache.

He flopped back onto his damp
pillow and kicked off the bed sheet.

Relax.

Sleep.

But don’t dream.

His attempt at self-hypnotic
relaxation failed to induce sleep. His mind churning with unbidden images of
violence and blood, he fell into a moonlit limbo somewhere between wakefulness
and sleep—a netherworld with shadowy figures skulking at its edges, the
skulkers armed with knives and guns.

Gotta piss.

He drags himself from bed and
stumbles into the tiny bathroom. Takes his semi-erect penis in hand and aims it
at the thighs of the dead girl...

Dreaming...

...that I got up to piss.

He came fully awake, dragged
himself out of bed and made his way to the tiny bathroom where he
did
begin to empty his bladder. He shivered as the stream of urine splashed into
the bowl’s water and he sighed with relief as the aching pressure of his full
bladder dissipated. “Ahhh...”

The piss seemed to go on forever,
as did the accompanying pleasure of release.

Pissing like a race horse.
“Uhnnn...”

Then the stream became a trickle,
the trickle became a dribble, and Skeeter shook the last few drops from the tip
of his penis, slipped it back into the folds of his boxer shorts and headed
back to bed.

As soon as he came out of the
bathroom, a shifting shadow seized him. A hand covered his mouth, muffling his
startled cry, and something sharp and cool pricked the soft flesh of his
throat.

“Make a sound and I’ll make you
bleed,” whispered a rasping voice.

Joe Rob?

Another shadow fell upon him and
forced him to his knees, then onto his back.  The scent of sweat-soured
clothing and rancid armpit odor sickened him.

Not Joe Rob. Jesus...

The second shadow did something
that made a sharp tearing sound, then slapped something thin and sticky across
Skeeter’s lips.

Duct tape. Oh shit, it’s....

They rolled him onto his belly.

 ...Odell’s brothers.

And tied his hands behind his back
with scratchy rope. The two shadows yanked him to his feet and hustled him out
the door and into the night.

The strong musk of their combined
body odors nearly made him gag.

As they forced him into the yawning
trunk of the black Firebird, Skeeter wished with all his being that this was
just a dream.

Luke came awake, thinking—hoping—it
was time to get up. He rolled onto his side and looked at the clock. 1:33 in
the damn morning. He groaned, knowing he would not be able to get back to sleep
and that he would spend the next few torturous hours trying in vain to clock
some decent rest time. He had been plagued by these early-morning awakenings
for several months now, and none of the sleep remedies he’d tried had done any
good. His circadian rhythms were far out of whack, and he was now a
full-fledged insomniac, never getting more than three straight hours of restful
sleep a night. He was building up an unhealthy sleep deficit that was certain
to exact a cruel toll in the coming days and weeks. He got through most days by
building up enough momentum to keep him going till nightfall, but it was
becoming harder and harder to get up to speed, and he was becoming more
lethargic, more zombie-like, with each passing night and subsequent day. When
he could, he would grab a catnap after lunch, and that usually helped recharge
his internal batteries, but overall, the quality of his day-to-day existence
was deteriorating, his mental outlook dimmed and distorted by the effects of
prolonged sleep deprivation.

He had tried Melatonin, Valerian
root, Benadryl, and chamomile tea, but none of these prevented his
middle-of-the-night awakenings. Then he tried several prescription drugs, and
one of them seemed to help for a couple of nights, but then it lost its
effectiveness, and his abnormal sleep pattern reasserted itself with a
vengeance. Three or four shots of hard liquor just prior to bedtime seemed to
be most effective in getting him through the night, but the ensuing hangover
and headache made booze an unacceptable sleep aid.

So he was cursed with insomnia, and
had to make the best of it any way he could. To that end, he relied on his
obsession with the Porch clan to provide the impetus to get through his zombie
days. Each new day was another opportunity to turn up the crucial bit of
evidence that would bring Fate and his boys to justice. So far, this motivation
had worked pretty well; yet he couldn’t help but wonder if his obsession was
somehow connected to—perhaps even responsible for—his insomnia. He wondered,
too, why he never dreamed anymore—or if he did dream, why the dreams remained
unremembered.

Luke took another look at the
clock. Five minutes had passed since his last time check. Maybe he should get
rid of the goddamn clock.

“Goddamn,” he said, tossing his
pillow across the room. “Might as well get your ass up.”

He rolled out of bed and went into
the bathroom to take a leak. Pausing in front of the mirror, he studied his
reflection, noting the blood-shot eyes and the purplish bags hanging beneath
them.
Starting to look like an old man. Shit. What’s next? Prostate trouble?

He emptied his bladder, then padded
through the dark house and downstairs to the kitchen, where he opened the
fridge, squinting against the glaring light from the recessed bulb, and poured
himself a small glass of milk. He drank it down, rinsed the glass and set it on
the counter next to the coffee maker. He wanted coffee—could almost smell it
brewing—but nixed the idea. Coffee now would kill any chance he had of getting
back to sleep.

He decided to go back to bed and
try to read himself to sleep. If he could drop off for even half an hour, he
would be grateful upon awakening. And if he couldn’t—reading would distract his
mind from its nagging worries concerning Skeeter Partain and Fate Porch’s boys.
Before turning in for the night, Luke had called Chief Keller at home and asked
Keller to instruct the night patrol to make frequent drive-bys of the Partain
house. Keller, who had taken over as chief upon Luke’s retirement from the
force, was glad to oblige, but had naturally wanted to know the reason for the
drive-bys. Luke had responded, “Just trust me on this, Bill. I think the
Partain boy might’ve run afoul of the Porch boys. If he has, it could mean
trouble.” Keller, bless his loyal heart, hadn’t questioned Luke further.

But Luke knew that having a squad
car make frequent passes by Partain’s house was not a sufficient safeguard
against any devilish moves of the Porches. Fate and his sons had proven
themselves more than proficient at eluding the lumbering reach of the arm of
the law.

He fluffed up his pillow, then
settled back to read Howard Bahr’s
The Black Flower
. The trouble was, he
became so engrossed in the beautifully written novel of the Civil War that he
wasn’t the least bit sleepy. He forced himself to shut the book, making a
mental note to find a duller book to use as a sleep aid.

Another glance at the cursed clock.
2:16.

He turned off the light and tried
to will his body into a state of deep relaxation. His muscles responded, but
his mind was too busy making random associations and chattering to itself to
allow sleep to overtake him.

At 2:30, he gave up and crawled out
of bed.

He sat at the kitchen table,
waiting for the coffee to brew, and he pictured Ree Tyler sitting across the
table, where she had sat last night, looking finer than any woman should to a
man in his fifties. He massaged his temples, wondering if he should break his
date with her. Something was obviously brewing between the Porches and Skeeter
Partain, so now was not the time to take a night off from his surveillance of
his long-time quarry. On the other hand, he
wanted
to spend time with
Ree, wanted to be in the company of a good-hearted woman.
Would making love
to her cure my insomnia?
He flushed at the thought. He wasn’t sure he still
knew how to seduce a woman. Did insomnia affect a man’s sexual prowess? 
What
if I can’t get it up?

The coffeemaker made its last
asthmatic gurgles, signaling that the brew was ready. He poured himself a large
mug and held it to his face, savoring the heady, steaming aroma, then slurped a
mouthful.

Ah, life’s simple pleasures.

A fresh pot of coffee.

The love of a fine woman.

A good night of sleep.

“Shit,” he whispered. “I’ve got
work to do.”

Promises to keep, and miles to
go before I sleep.

The lines of poetry memorized years
ago in high school decided him. He would call Ree later today and ask for a
rain-check on the dinner invitation. Tonight he would keep his vigil on the
Porch farmhouse.

   Joe Rob Campbell climbed the
cement stairs to the back door that opened into his room in his grandmother’s
house. He slipped quietly inside, not wishing to wake his dead mother’s mother.
Grandma was a sweet old lady, but she asked too many questions. Where were you
so late? Who were you with? You weren’t drinking, were you? You know how people
love to gossip, don’t you?

Tonight he was in no mood for an
interrogation. He just wanted to crash and sleep away the darkness. He wanted
to turn off the loop of violent images running endlessly through his mind. He
didn’t want to think about the way Death seemed to follow him, first taking his
mother and stepfather in an auto accident, then taking his grandfather a mere
six months after Joe Rob had moved in with his grandparents. It almost seemed
as if Death had finally overtaken him and claimed him as its instrument with
the killing of Odell Porch.

He stripped off his clothes, and
fell into bed. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Odell was there, waiting for him,
opening his third eye and using it to peer into Joe Rob’s soul. Odell was not
alone. The psycho woman was with him, pointing her finger at Joe Rob in
venomous accusation. Snakes twined about her naked shoulders and dangled from
the tangles of her hair. Her breasts were nippled with the segmented hard-shell
rattles from diamondbacks’ tails, and the rattles quivered now, clattering like
tiny maracas, sounding their sibilant warnings. But this back-from-the dead
Medusa only made him laugh. She couldn’t turn him to stone. He had already
hardened his heart and turned himself to stone from the inside out. His harsh
laughter shattered her like delicate crystal, the fallen shards reflecting
light from a ghost moon. Odell’s bullet-hole eye looked too deeply into Joe
Rob’s soul and was forever blinded by the limitless darkness. And Joe Rob was
at last left alone.

He slept the sleep of the dead.

***

 Skeeter woke to a nightmare. A
nightmare of pain and humiliation. A nightmare that wasn’t a nightmare at all,
because this was really happening. He was trussed up and hanging by a thick
chain in the loft of an abandoned barn. The smell of the rusty chain and the
copper-like scent of his own blood formed a pungent bouquet that filled him
with terror.

Though he was alone now, Skeeter
knew they would be back.

They’re going to kill me.   

It had started in earnest the
minute the lid opened and the two Porch ruffians hustled him out of the
Firebird’s trunk. The dilapidated farmhouse and the sun-bleached-to-gray barn
loomed like dreamscape structures in the ghostly moonlight, and Skeeter knew at
once where they’d brought him. This was the Bad Place, the old farmhouse
everybody in town said was haunted by the farmer who had killed his wife and
kids with an axe, then hanged himself in the barn loft. And just then Skeeter
believed it was so. The very ground was infected with evil.

   They pushed him into the barn
and made him climb the ladder to the barn loft—no easy task with his hands tied
behind his back. He slipped twice, barking his shins on the ladder.

On the third try he made it to the
top and fell face down on a pile of rotten hay. His captors came up behind him
and lifted him to his knees. Someone lit a lantern.

“You know who we are, boy?” said
the one in the cowboy hat, resting his hand on the butt of the pistol he wore
on his hip.

Skeeter shook his head: no.

The man cuffed him on the ear with
the back of his hand. “You’re lying. You don’t wanna lie to us, ya dumb piece
of shit. You know who we are?”

Skeeter nodded.

 “That’s right,” said the man in
the hat.  “We’re Odell’s brothers.”

The other brother stepped forward
and seized Skeeter’s chin in his rough hand. “And you’re gone tell us about
Odell. We know you were out at the dump the day he disappeared, so we think you
can tell us where he’s at. Take that tape off his mouth, Cowboy.”

Cowboy reached down and snatched
off the duct tape, ripping Skeeter’s lips raw and making him yowl at the pain.

“Scream all you want to,” Cowboy
said. “Ain’t nobody gonna hear you.”

The other brother—Skeeter couldn’t
think of his name—moved behind him and Skeeter heard the clinking rattle of
chain links.

Cowboy grinned and said, “Luther
here’s gonna hang you up on this chain so we can work on you real good. Then
you’ll tell us what we wanna know.”

“I don’t know anything!” Skeeter
blurted. “I swear. We were at the dump but we didn’t see your brother. I swear
to God.”

“Bullshit,” Cowboy said with a
sneer. “He’s lying, Luther.”

“We went to shoot rats,” Skeeter
told them. “If Odell was there, he must’ve left before we got there. We never
saw him.”

“Oh, he was there all right,” said
Luther, passing the thick chain around Skeeter’s torso and under his armpits.
“And he didn’t leave on his own. He woulda waited for us to pick him up. He
sure as hell wouldn’ta walked all the way home. He was a mite crazy but he was
more lazy than crazy, least when it comes to walkin’ anywhere.”

Luther hooked the chain behind
Skeeter’s back, and all of a sudden Skeeter was hoisted off the loft floor,
suspended by the hanging chain. He began to twist and turn slowly in the air,
his bare feet feeling strange with nothing solid beneath them.

“So,” said Luther as he secured the
free end of the chain to a big rusty nail hammered into the wall.

“So,” said Cowboy, taking up his
brother’s refrain, “you’re gonna tell us. Where’s our brother?”

Skeeter looked into their faces and
saw their resemblance to Odell. The close-set eyes, the thick jowls, the cruel
twist of the lower lip, pinned-back ears, the muddy complexion: these were the
earmarks of the Porch genes. He licked his dry lips, then said, “I don’t know
where
he is. I’m telling ya, I
don’t know
.”

With no warning, Luther punched him
in the belly. The air
whuffed
out of him and he began to swing back and
forth from the force of the blow. Nausea bloomed deep in his belly, rose up his
throat and filled his mouth with acidic saliva.

A hunting knife appeared in
Luther’s thick fist and he jabbed the tip of the blade at Skeeter’s belly.
Skeeter drew in his stomach but the sharp steel punctured the soft flesh just
to the right of his navel and he cried out in pain.

Luther Porch sneered with obvious
contempt. “Got ourselves a real pussy, li’l brother. Just a little stick and
he’s already bellyachin’. What’s he gone do when I really start cuttin’?”

“Shit his britches and scream like
a girl.” Cowboy was bouncing on his heels, anxious to get in on the fun. “Lemme
cut his balls off, Luther. Then he’ll really scream like a girl.”

“I ain’t sure he’s got any balls.
Let’s check him out.”

Luther reached up and grabbed the
waistband of Skeeter’s boxer shorts. Skeeter kicked at Luther’s arm, cracking
his toes against the man’s elbow. Luther ignored the blow and yanked the cotton
shorts down to Skeeter’s ankles.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Luther said
with a laugh. “I never seen such a little-bitty dick. Ain’t hardly worth the
trouble of cuttin’ it off.”

“Still hurt like a bitch, though,”
Cowboy said. “That’s what counts. Lemme hold your knife. I can take his ball
sack off with one little whack. Bet he’ll talk to us then.”

“Wait now,” Luther said. “I reckon
he should have a say in this. Tell me, boy. You rather lose your dick or your
balls? Hmm?”

“Please,” cried Skeeter, “don’t cut
me. I’ll tell you everything.  I will. I promise.”

“But we ain’t even hurt you yet.”
Luther said. “I don’t reckon your tongue’s loosened up enough to tell us
everything. See, we don’t wanna hear no bullshit. We hear any bullshit, you’re
gonna hurt so bad you’ll be beggin’ us to kill you.” Luther punctuated his
comment with the knife, opening a deep gash in Skeeter’s left thigh.

Skeeter didn’t scream this time. He
clenched his teeth and grunted at the pain. Tears filled his eyes and snot ran
from his nose. “It wasn’t me,” he blurted. “It was Joe Rob.
He
killed
him.”

“Sonofabitch,” Cowboy spat.

“Killed Odell?”  Luther’s beady
eyes went stone cold.  His face became a mask of lifeless flesh.

“Yeah. It was an accident. I swear.
Odell was gonna rape this girl. A runaway from the nuthouse. Joe Rob tried to
stop him and Odell went at him with a knife and the gun just went off. He
didn’t mean to shoot him. It just happened.”

“Goddamn,” Cowboy said as he began
pacing about the barn loft. “Goddamn motherfuckin’ sonofabitch, they killed
him. He’s
dead
, Luther. How we gonna tell Paw?” Then he stopped pacing,
drew his pistol and jammed the muzzle into Skeeter’s stomach. “I’m gonna blow
your fuckin’ guts out!”

“No,” Luther warned as he seized
the wrist of his brother’s gun-hand and pulled it away. “Not yet. Calm your ass
down.”

“Did you hear what he just said?”
Cowboy was incredulous.

“I heard, goddammit. Now back off.”

Skeeter already regretted his
blurted words. But now that he’d said them, he had to convince these heathens
that their brother’s death really had been an accident—that Joe Rob hadn’t
meant to kill him. Otherwise, they would surely kill Joe Rob and it would be
Skeeter’s fault.

“Where’s my brother?” Luther asked
in a voice that was eerily calm and even.

“We buried him out past the wolf’s
den. You know where that is, right?”

“Who’s this Joe Rob motherfucker?”
Luther’s words came out through gritted teeth, and Skeeter sensed that the man
was holding back a whirlwind of raging violence.   Cowboy paced back and forth,
twirling his pistol on his finger.

“Joe Rob Campbell. He’s my best
friend. That’s how I know he didn’t mean to kill him. Joe Rob’s not—”

“He the one drives that old
piece-of-shit Mustang?”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“Where is he right now?”

“He’s...he’s probably home in bed.”

“Where’s home, dipshit?”

“That big brick house on the corner
of West Main and Fifth Avenue? That’s his grandmother’s house. He lives with
her.” Skeeter glanced at Cowboy, who continued to pace, mumbling to himself.

Luther continued his questioning.
All business now. No more playing with his prey. “If it was an accident, why
didn’t you go to the cops?”

“We were going to, but...we were
afraid you guys wouldn’t believe it was an accident. Or wouldn’t care and would
kill us anyway.”

“Smart boy.” Luther sheathed his
hunting knife, and Skeeter breathed a small sigh of relief. “And this girl you
said Odell was gonna fuck. What about her?”

“She’s dead. Rattler bit her. She’s
at my dad’s funeral home.”

“Let’s go get that sumbitch,
Luther,” said Cowboy. “He’s dead and don’t know it.”

“He’s dead all right,” Luther said.
“But first we got to tell Diddy. He calls the shots.”

Oh Jesus, I’ve killed Joe Rob.
Skeeter’s physical pain was supplanted by his guilty anguish. He had ratted out
his best friend, broken a blood oath, and if he was allowed to live, he would
have to live with his cowardly betrayal till the end of his days. “But it was
an accident,” he told his captors. “Joe Rob didn’t mean to kill your brother.
You don’t have to kill him.”

“You don’t know shit,” Luther said
with a feral snarl. “You open your mouth again, I’ll cut your fuckin’ tongue
out.”

“Ort to cut it out anyway,” Cowboy
said. “I need to hurt somebody. And this sumbitch was there when Odell died.
He’s got to pay.”

“Not till he takes us to where they
buried him. He’s gonna dig him up, then he’s gonna die.”

“You hear that, you sorry piece o’
shit?” Cowboy grinned maniacally at Skeeter. “That hole you dug for our
brother’s gonna be your own fuckin’ grave.”

Luther picked up the lantern.
“Let’s go wake up Diddy.”

“He’s gonna be so pissed, ain’t no
tellin’ what he’s liable to do. Maybe I should wait here and make sure this
motherfucker don’t go nowhere.”

“He ain’t goin’ nowhere. You think
he can break that damn chain?”

“No, but what if somebody comes
along and—”

“Nobody’s coming out here in the
middle of the night. This place is haunted, don’t you know?”

“Yeah.” Cowboy grinned and gave
Skeeter a push. The chain creaked against the wooden rafter as Skeeter swung
back and forth over the barn-loft floor. “Hang loose, motherfucker. We’ll be
back real soon.”

The Porch brothers descended the
ladder, leaving Skeeter in darkness and deep despair. When he heard their car
drive off, he began to cry, sobbing at first, then blubbering like a
heartbroken baby. He cried for himself and for his best friend. He wept for
Odell Porch and for Jessica A. Lowell.

And when he was all cried out, he
began to pray.