Bottled Abyss (27 page)

Other perplexing thoughts fluxed in Janet’s mind. She still feared strangulation, but oddly her desire to slip a rope around her neck had resurfaced. It was as though she now possessed both the fear and the desire simultaneously. They canceled each other out and at the same time reaffirmed one another. She hadn’t known what to do with the coin when she first came upon her best friend hanging in the air like that. All Janet knew was that the awful coin was hers—that this particular death did not belong to Faye. Janet had tried to take it back, but only gained this befuddling psychosis in exchange.

“Janet,” Faye croaked from the other room, “can you come here?”

Janet took her cup and hurried back into the living room. “All ready for the hospital?”

Faye’s resonance had a chain-smoking soul singer’s quality to it. “How could you not tell me? You had me on the phone. You could have at least told me not to touch the coin—”

Janet set down her tea cup quickly. “Jesus, Faye, I told you I didn’t know.”

“That,” she paused to wet her voice, “in itself should have been enough.”

“I just didn’t know, okay?”

“After Sam, you should have.” Faye got surprisingly loud. “You aren’t a good friend.”

“Wait Faye, you’re worked up.” Evan placed a photo of Herman back up on the fireplace.

“Oh, it lives,” said Faye.

“Don’t pick on Janet. Come on, let’s go to the hospital. Want me to help you stand?”

“How did you know I was in the groves?” Faye asked.

Evan absorbed the question with all the grace of a punch in the nose. “I—huh—it was just a hunch. I think you mentioned it once. We were trying to get back here quickly in case you showed.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What’s she talking about?” asked Janet. When Evan didn’t answer, she said to Faye, “He told me you might have gone through the groves. That’s all he said.”

“Just drop it,” said Evan. “Faye, we have to get—”

“No, no, you tell me.”

Evan sighed. “We’ve used that short cut together before.”

“Bull. I never said a word about it and you’ve never taken it when you’re driving. So how did you know? Have you been following me? Stalking?”

“This is so dumb. There are more important matters right now.”

“Evan?”

“A few times.”

“A few?”

“Good god…”

Faye’s face glowed red. “And?”

Evan’s foundations were cracking and just about to break asunder. Faye and Janet watched him intently and he made several false starts before speaking.

“I know the baby’s probably from one of those illegal pieces of trash that live in the grove. Why do you insist on reminding me? It doesn’t matter. I want the baby. I want you. We need to make sure you’re okay. Can we please, just please, go to the ER.”

At the word
baby,
Faye had begun to weep. “How could you judge me like that?”

Evan smacked the wall behind him. “You went into their trailers, Faye. More than one time.”

Faye shook her head. “To talk. Nothing happened. You have the moral compass of a rat, Evan.”

“How has this become about me? Janet nearly got you killed!”

“This is about both of you.”

“I’m not the one screwing around,” Evan pointed out. “Looks like you got a fair punishment for poisoning our marriage.”

“You’re hideous!” Faye whirled around to Janet. “Both of you!”

“Holy shit, are you kidding me?” Evan said. “After the shit we’ve seen today, you’re still gonna deny
what you did
? You’ve ruined my life.”

Janet went to Faye and lightly touched her arm. “Hey, let’s just go. This is—”

Faye ripped her arm away from Janet and in the process fell sideways on the couch. She awkwardly fought to her feet. “Just stay away. I don’t ever want to see, or talk to you… again.”

Janet took a step back. “Okay. Whatever you want.”

Faye waddled to the front door with Evan following close behind. He pulled the door closed but it didn’t shut all the way.

Janet shoved the door closed with a resounding, “Fuck!”

She dropped her head against the door for a moment and closed her eyes. “Fuck,” she said again, in a whisper.

When she turned around, the Fury stood at the fireplace.

Janet’s entire body became ice. The creature took up most of the living room with its scaly dragon body. Its muscled arms flexed as it held its clawed hands clasped together, like in prayer. A sweet sewage odor permeated everything in the room.

“Are you going to kill me?”

The bleeding shark eyes studied her with intense hunger. “I am not death. I am justice.”

“How did you find me?”

“The bottle. It was close enough to speak to me, so I was able to follow. Though things have changed, I can still recognize the God Nyx.”

The creature looked more injured than it had in the grove. Some of its flesh had torn off in clumps and its left pair of gills festered with a pale gray fluid.

“What do you want from me?”

“I told you to stop using the bottle. You see what occurs. Regardless of these new waters flowing inside, you are not made of the River. You cannot dole out transactions.”

“You can have the bottle.”

“I am unable to touch the River in such a concentrated form; therefore I cannot accept the bottle. That would shatter this reality.”

“I don’t understand a damn thing you’re saying.”

“You don’t have to understand,” the monster replied. “Just stop this. The passing of souls feels exhilarating now, but it will eat you up. Look to me as an example. I am made of the
Styx
. This new reincarnation of the God has no use for my justice. It will happen the same way if you continue… Bury that bottle. I will fade, you will go on living. Find a new husband, make a new daughter. Life pours out faster toward the end and then drips until nothing. Take life while it remains full.”

Janet believed everything it said and understood it would not harm her… In a way, she had all the power now. This thing only took those unfortunates who accepted the death coins.

Sensing her reluctance, it said, “Things cannot go on in this way.”

“I know,” Janet replied. She calmly met its atrocious eyes. “This bottle hasn’t seen its full potential yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have unfinished business.”

“Wait!”

Janet pulled open the front door and ran for the side of the house. Lester barked merrily at her approach. She took the leash off the wall and hooked it to his collar.

She hustled out to the truck and loaded Lester into the back.

Beyond the pulled blinds, the Fury watched from the living room window. It made no move to follow.

Lester howled from the back seat.

Janet checked the center console for the bottle.

The bottle was still there.

She put the truck in reverse and backed out. In the rearview mirror her house went quickly out of sight.

Janet would never see her home again.

CHAPTER II

The Murderer

SoCal News Online

The body of a man that was found mutilated in the San Timoteo badlands Sunday has been identified.

34-year-old Moreno Valley resident Herman Jacob Erikson's body was found Sunday around 11 a.m., in a wash-out near the surrounding foothills, his body having been largely savaged by desert predators, according to Sheriff's Sgt. Ensio Lopez. Among the victim’s numerous wounds, an unexplained trauma to the right eye was discovered as atypical to animal wounds.

"Based on the preliminary investigation, Desert Station investigators as well as investigators from the Riverside County Sheriff's Department Central Homicide Unit were called to the scene and assumed the investigation," added Lopez.

Erikson’s spouse, who has chosen anonymity from the media, arrived late Sunday evening at the city coroner to identify the body. At present, Mrs. Erikson is not a person of interest in the investigation.

Janet read the article about ten times. The hotel room was quiet, the lights were out, she was in pajamas, and nothing else existed in the universe but the bottle, its shape illuminated by the screen of her old laptop. She would read the article and then turn her eyes to the bottle, feel guilty, repeat the cycle.

People had been blowing up her cell phone throughout the morning. Faye, Evan, Officer Davis and the one cousin who hadn’t disowned Janet growing up. She only spoke to Officer Davis though, because she wanted some sort of umbilicus to the police department. It was a curt conversation; as much as
Davis
wished to become a shoulder to lean on, Janet focused only on the Josue Ramirez case.

It was good to have something to take her attention off Herman, but that old sick desire still tugged at Janet, as well as the paralyzing fear that squashed it. She was getting better at not introducing those thoughts, yet the idea that one could win over the other at any minute, or not ever, made her want to claw all the moon and stars wallpaper off the walls.

The Fury had appeared a few times since she’d checked in. She would find it staring at her from down the maroon carpeted halls or stalking around the parking lot when she sneaked Lester out for a walk. The monster never approached her—it looked to be hurting more and more. She hoped it would just die and leave her and the bottle alone.

There were too many things left to worry about while she made plans. Financing this crusade had to be considered. The money Herman had banked from his various jobs kept their bank account nice and padded, but it would run out eventually. Janet had credit cards for when that time came and she would run them to their limits if she had to, but how long would it take to get to Melody’s murderer?

Her stomach growled. She ignored it.

Lester jumped up on one of the queen sized beds, circled restlessly and then dropped down with a huff. He put his head on his paws but kept his eyes on the bottle. He also watched it often, she noticed.

Janet sighed and changed from the local news website. Herman’s pale green face flashed through her mind with other graphic images from the coroner’s office. Her husband’s face had been bloated with days of death, yet still wore an expression of shock. His hair had looked thick and vibrant, as though it had just been washed and conditioned. That alone may have made her doubt him being gone, but other features helped to diminish any hope of that. One eyelid had been gnawed off and the other eye socket was nothing more than a scabby gray tunnel. The muscles and tendons of his right shoulder had been torn from the bone. Dirt and animal fur caked his mouth and ears. Herman had been picky about cleaning his ears.
Two q-tips every morning…

The police had their own ideas about what had happened to him, but Janet didn’t need an explanation.

All the answers were in the bottle sitting next to her mouse pad.

It’ll never give me those answers though, will it?

She lost control abruptly and realized she was gasping, hyperventilating. Panic closed in. Lester glanced over, black and white head cocked with concern. This was what happened, she thought, when you run out of strength to grieve.
Your body tries to kill itself. Maybe this is what it means to die of a broken heart?

When her attack settled, she put it behind her and went straight back into her hunt.

Loma Linda Hospital
. Josue Ramirez. That had to be her focus.

When Janet had worked at the school, one of the teacher’s aides in the neighboring classroom left for an internship as a medical assistant on the children’s ward at Loma Linda. Her name was Stacy…Roberts.
Yes
, and they’d always gotten along well. Janet had met her for lunch once when she was thinking of changing careers. Stacy had shown her almost the entire hospital and introduced her to a few nurses and doctors, none of which Janet remembered.

But another refresher tour might help.

She looked up the number for Stacy’s ward.

It took a few hours before Janet got a hold of Stacy Roberts. Thankfully, she still worked at Loma Linda and remembered who Janet was. She didn’t know anything about the fates of Melody or Herman though, and that made the conversation easier. Stacy, as chipper and bubbly as Janet remembered, had no problem showing her around the hospital a second time, but tomorrow would be better. Janet explained she wasn’t interested in a new job, but she was back in school and studying medical malpractice. Taking a big chance, she mentioned her current paper involved the rights of a patient being held under police custody, and that she would love to learn more about how Loma Linda staff dealt with such patients. Stacy wasn’t sure if she could help her there, but said they could probably find out from someone there.

Good enough.

Janet took a long stroll down to the liquor store. She would pick up some snacks to silence her stomach and a bottle of water that would be preferable to the metallic tasting tap water in her room. Inside her overcoat, she clenched the bottle by its throat. Leaving it in the room with Lester wasn’t an option. It was too dangerous; the dog had shown too much interest. Besides which, this part of town was pretty raw. On her first trip to this liquor store, she’d seen a junkie lying in an alley so narrow it could scarcely be called one. Between the store and a laundry mat, he had wedged himself in, knees pressed to his chest, eyes shut, needle still inserted in his forearm for the entire world to see. The man’s clothing had that brown hue that only the homeless could cultivate. His beard, likewise, was a silver-white conflagration from upper lip down to his neckline, a hobo’s pelt by any standard.

The second trip he’d been missing from the alley. This time, he was back, with a new needle in his arm. His eyes weren’t shut though, just heavy with ecstasy-tears.

Janet had been thinking about something since first seeing that needle. Officer Davis noted yesterday that Josue Ramirez had taken a turn for the worse and (off the record) had acquired a horrible stomach infection that had spread and ulcerated. The pain was excruciating and the doctors had him on a morphine drip. Hopefully he wasn’t doped up when she stopped by for a visit.

Even getting there is assuming a whole hell of a lot.

Sober or not, if she could get past an armed guard and slip into Ramirez’s hospital room, how could she get him to talk? He hadn’t spoken to anybody else yet, not even when his loved ones started showing up dead. That meant he wasn’t protecting his accomplice out of loyalty; he was protecting him out of fear.

Faye had met the Fury and survived. It was possible just to take the coin away like before. If Janet monitored an interaction between the Fury and Ramirez, maybe the son of a bitch would see something more motivating than his criminal partner. And if he wouldn’t talk then, nothing would make him. He’d die then, and that would mean Janet would be leaving behind a dead man. How would she keep the police on duty busy before and after this went down?

How could she make it look like an accident? Janet mulled over morphine and heroine and drugs in general as she walked the sad little aisles of the liquor store in search of snacks and dog food.

That needle.

Heroine. Morphine.

Noting the bum’s gaunt appearance, he seemed to be eating more Horse these days than food. Was an overdose in his future? It sure as hell looked like it.

Janet stood there, eyes fixed on a can of wet dog food that cost six dollars and ninety-nine cents.
Holy shit, better stop food shopping at liquor stores.

She grabbed some other items of varying degrees of sugariness and saltiness, then went to the counter and purchased them, all the while shuffling the bottle back and forth in her hands, sometimes setting it on the ground and clamping it between her calves. Twice the liquor store clerk glanced suspiciously at her actions but said nothing.