Body Counting Read online

  As Jack watched Castle’s face he knew without a shred of doubt that he was literally hearing his son’s ghostly voice. It was something in the eyes.

  Sitting there, the glass the only barrier between him and his son’s ghost, Jack felt his mind gnawing on his sanity. He felt as if a wire was being pulled in his brain, stretching until it threatened to snap explosively, sending his mind spiraling down into a void. For a brief moment, he totally forgot the bizarreness of the situation and thought of his son, pushing Castle’s repulsing presence deep down into his howling psyche.

  Jack held his quivering hand in the air tentatively before placing it on the glass, grinding his teeth together violently to chase down an explosive sob. Castle’s hand reached out and their palms touched.

  Even through the glass, Jack could feel the presence of his son.

  “I love you,” Jack whispered into the phone, his breath firing from his mouth in machine-gun-like hisses of pain.

  “Well this is one motherfucking touching moment,” Castle purred, knocking his knuckles on the glass so that Jack could feel the vibration. “Hell, even a stone-cold fucker like me can feel the emotion in this room! I’m gonna need tissues now.” He put his hand to his eye and wiped it mockingly.

  “What the hell are you?” Jack had fallen back into the chair, his body as slack as his broken mind.

  “I don’t know, man. I got this talent for taking souls into my head. Always had it. At times it can make your head feel like an out-of-control symphony of the dead, but I’ve been able to keep it under control. I’d let you talk to Samantha, but she hasn’t been too good as of late, and tends to babble about meaningless shit. It’s so fun to mindfuck her, though, of that I must agree.”

  “I want to see her,” Jack said desperately. “Let me talk to her. Let me talk to Robby again.”

  “Not gonna happen. But she has expressed a wish that you come to her.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “All you gotta do is let me kill you. Then I can take you inside of me. My mind may be one fucked-up wasteland, Jack, but at least you can see them again.”

  “I would do anything to talk to Robby and Samantha again. Anything. Let me talk to her for a moment. Please.”

  Castle smiled in the way that a spider would smile at fly. “If I let you talk to her, you gotta do something for me first.”

  “I won’t kill anybody.”

  “I’m going to give you a little taste now,” Castle said, closing his eyes briefly. When he opened them, Jack saw his former lover in her murderer’s eyes. “Jack? We’re in hell. Do not—” She was abruptly cut off by Castle’s predatory smile. “Do you believe now, Jack?”

  “Goddammit, Castle,” Jack said, keeping his voice low. “How is this possible?”

  Castle just stared back at him cryptically. “Do you believe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I will let you talk to her again if you show me the faith, Jack. Just do one itty-bitty thing for me.”

  “I won’t kill anyone.”

  “Yes, you said that,” Castle said, his voice carrying a mocking tone through the receiver. He put his palm to the glass. “I want you to place your index finger on my palm here.”

  Jack placed his finger into the glass, his warm flesh fogging a halo around the tip.

  “Okay, good. Now I want you to push hard, snapping your finger. Break the fucker. I want to feel the vibration of your bone snapping on the glass.”

  Jack hesitated, his finger shaking.

  “Go on, do it. If you do, I will let you talk to them for a moment. You have my word. And then we can move on to other things.”

  Jack looked over at the guard and saw that he was reading a magazine. “I hope you fucking burn in hell, you bastard,” he whispered, pressing his finger into the glass with as much force as he could muster.

  For a moment, his finger wavered, bending slightly. The snapping of Jack’s bone vibrated into the glass, traveling up to Castle’s face where it exploded into his shark-like smile.

  “Yes,” Castle hissed as if he enjoyed the feeling sexually.

  The pain in Jack’s finger flowered up his arm and deep into his bones, throbbing brutally with every beat of his heart. He closed his eyes, biting into his lip until blood beaded out and chased a scream back into his shrieking mind.

  “Let me talk to her,” Jack finally hissed, his clenched tightly closed.

  “Jack, are you insane?” His wife said, her voice creeping into his ear eerily. Words from the dead. He did not open his eyes, ruining the illusion of his wife’s memory with Castle’s evil face. “Leave now. We can’t be saved. Don’t let him manipulate you like this.”

  Jack sighed. “You have no idea how good it feels to hear your voice, Samantha. I’ve thought about you every day. I love you so much.”

  “Please, Jack, stop—” she was cut off again, replaced with Castle’s voice again. “That’s enough. Do you want to be with her again? Do you want to see your son?”

  Jack opened his madness-laced eyes and looked up at Castle defiantly. He felt the line in his mind snap, he heard it almost audibly. “Yes.”

  “I can make this possible. All you have to do is kill yourself.” Castle stopped, seeming to fight with inner demons. His face was undulating uncontrollably, spasms shooting around his white flesh like insects nestling. A few moments later, and his faced registered that he was back in control. “Can you do this, Jack?”

  Jack thought about being able to speak once again to his wife and son. It did not matter if he was literally in hell, if he could somehow be with them again he would do it. No hell could be worse than what he had lived through since they had disappeared.

  “Yes,” Jack said, the word coming out like a painful moan. “I want to be with them.”

  “Okay, I want you to ask that guard over there for a pen. Tell him you need to write something down, something important. I doubt he’ll turn you down, people do it all the time.”

  Jack stood up numbly. He liked the way it felt to be insane, it was as if he was somehow free. The guard did not even ask him why he wanted the pen—there was no way he would be able to give it to a prisoner anyway. He returned to Castle and sat down. It was a silver Tiffany pen, cold and hard in his pulsating hand.

  “Good. Now I want you to take that pen and slam it here,” Castle said, dragging a sharp fingernail over his jugular vein in a white trail. “You get it there and I will do the rest. You will see your wife and son again.”

  “Castle?” Jack whispered. His eyes looked empty.

  “Yes?”

  “I have never hated more. I will taste you someday.”

  Jack looked into Castle’s eyes, letting his rage-tainted madness spark through the air like electricity, then he smiled, stabbing the pen into his neck with hopeful and furious resignation.

  A fountain of blood splashed into the glass barrier, blocking Castle’s view from his prey.

  Minutes later, the guard was staring down at Jack’s twitching face.

  Castle laughed gleefully as the guard screamed for help, his breath fogging up the blood-splattered glass.

  Jack held his wife and son in his arms, staring out through Hunter Castle’s eyes at the crowd of people who sat around to view the execution, their faces unreadable. He felt Castle’s fear and laughed, waiting with excitement for the executioner to pull the switch.

  When the first jolts of electricity hurled through Castle’s body, Jack began to giggle, pulling Robby to him fiercely, riding the currents in maniacal glee, shrieking in an odd mixture of fury and elation. Being in Castle’s mind allowed him to feel everything that the murderous bastard felt. When he realized that Castle knew true fear just before the switch was pulled, he was howling with joy, chanting his enemy’s name like mantra.

  In that final moment, Jack was able to take control, letting his raving glee explode from Castle’s mouth like an eruption of flames. The mouth was still twitching in the throes of Jack’s laughter even after
Castle died.

  The Death of the Piano Man

  “You can’t be serious, man,” Harold said, staring at the closed door.

  Reed pulled at his thick beard, his white teeth shining out from his furry face as he smiled. “I told you I was going to do it.”

  “I know, but people say shit like that all the time.”

  Reed turned toward the door, smoothing down his ugly Hawaiian shirt with his large, hairy hands. “I don’t say shit I don’t mean. The man is evil. He is quite possibly the most diabolical man on the planet. Every time I hear him, I get the urge to kill someone. It ain’t right, especially considering his staying power.”

  “You better be fucking pulling my leg,” Harold said, rubbing his blond crew cut nervously. “I can be considered a co-conspirator just by being here. You aren’t really going to kill him?”

  “I’m not only going to kill him, I’m going to torture his ass too.”

  Reed opened the door, his eyes dancing with maniacal glee. “Meet my captive.”

  “Holy … fuck,” Harold said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “It really is Billy Joel.”

  Billy Joel was in the chair, his hands and feet tied together tightly. Joel raised his dark eyebrows when they came in, his cheek twitching apprehensively. “Let me the hell out of this chair.”

  Reed whipped out a gun from the waistband of his baggy, food-stained jeans. “I told you to shut the fuck up.”

  Harold walked in and circled the chair, eyeing Joel nervously. “You sure it’s him, man? He looks … fatter in person.”

  “It’s him,” Reed said, nodding as he cocked the gun. “He’s gotta die for his sins.”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong,” Joel said.

  “WHAT?” Reed asked, the veins snaking up angrily around his neck. “‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’. ‘The Piano Man’. ‘You May Be Right’. Honesty. Fucking ‘Uptown Girl’. ‘UPTOWN GIRL’.” He said each song like he was listing the members of Hitler’s Nazi party before the war crimes committee.

  “You already said, ‘Uptown Girl’, man,” Henry said, his voice deadpan.

  Reed winced. “Will you shut the fuck up? I’m trying to have a trial here.”

  “Well, I can see what you mean about ‘Uptown Girl’, that song is annoying as hell, especially with that doo-wop feel, but ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ ain’t THAT bad a song.”

  “It’s a fucking list, moron! A list is not a song! It’s a fucking list of happenings and people, with a drum playing. My god, that thing annoys the hell out of me.”

  “Catchy though,” Henry added.

  “Thanks,” Joel said, smiling despite the situation.

  “You’re welcome,” Henry shot back.

  Reed watched the two of them talk back and forth, his face reddening with boiled rage. “Will you stop fucking talking to him! I’m trying to have a trial here!”

  “I don’t think it’s Billy Joel, anyways,” Henry said, staring at the rotund musician suspiciously. “This guy has a beard. Last time I saw him, he didn’t have no beard.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?” Reed asked, his voice full of annoyance.

  “I don’t know. Maybe the ‘Uptown Girl’ video?”

  Reed was quiet for a moment, trying to contain his anger. “That was fifteen years ago, you numbfuck moron! People change in fifteen years! Hell, fifteen years ago you were a fat, acne-ridden piece a crap wearing that mangy iron-on transfer Iron Maiden tee shirt. You wore that until it literally fell off your body in rotted shreds.”

  “Is he always this high strung?” Joel asked, squirming in his chair.

  Henry nodded. “Yep. He’s mean too.”

  “Oh … my … god,” Reed hissed, his words shooting out venomously. “Henry, would you stop talking to him, goddammit!”

  “I’m still not sure it’s him,” Henry said. “If I was you, I’d make him sing a song.”

  Joel watched the two of them talk, his head turning to each one as they spoke, swallowing nervously.

  “Are you insane? I’m killing him for singing these songs, why the hell would I want him to sing one now? His license plate said ‘Piano Man’ on it.”

  “So? How you know he’s not some kind of impersonator?”

  Reed growled, putting the barrel of the gun to Joel’s head. “Okay, fat ass, sing me a song.”

  “It’s ‘sing us a song’,” Henry said, singing the lyric. “You know, like the ‘Piano Man’ song?”

  Reed shot his friend an angry glare, his eyes bulging like a frog. “Will you fucking stop? I swear, I’m going to kill you next.”

  Joel let his eyes turn toward the gun at his temple, his face still forward. He sang a few lines of ‘Piano Man’. When Reed heard the operatic voice, he knew it was the real thing.

  Reed was wincing, his face as white as if he had just watched a snuff film. “See? Told you it was him.” He shivered, his shoulders shaking. “How in the hell did the sound recorder not get the urge to jump into the studio and beat your ass the first time you played that song? How did you sing it live without inciting violence?”

  Joel’s eyes widened. “Listen, I’m not even recording pop songs anymore. I’m turning toward classical. ‘Uptown Girl’ was actually written as a classical song.”

  Reed clenched his teeth. “Under your logic, we should let murderers go free just because they aren’t killing people no more. And I don’t like the idea of you moving into the classical world, neither. It’s fucking ominous.”

  Joel was visibly frightened now, his face drawn. “Look, they are just songs. Surely, I don’t deserve to die for songs.”

  “You have no idea how many times your voice popped up in the bad times of my life. My girlfriend breaks up with me—‘Always a Woman’ comes on the radio. My band loses the record contract—Here comes ‘The Longest Time’ for your listenin’ pleasure. Mr. Joel, not only do your songs reverberate through my head like audio sewage, they stay there. Once you hear them, they never leave. You are evil, man. You are the Marquis de Sade of the pop world, sodomizing the masses with your bubblegum crap. It’s time someone stood up to your ass. Not only that, but you got to marry Christie Brinkley. What kind of fucking justice is this, you get a fine piece of ass like that?”

  “They divorced,” Henry said, but closed his mouth when Reed stabbed him with a deadly stare.

  “Now, you got anything else to say before I pull this trigger, Joel?” Reed asked, pushing the gun forward. “Thus ending the chances of you making any more evil and insidious songs?”

  “Please don’t kill me,” Joel said, his voice quivering. “I can give you money. I’ll stop touring.”

  The gun went off with a sudden snap, the blood splattering into Reed’s face. Henry fell backward onto his ass, his blue eyes wide. Joel’s head fell forward, his body still.

  “Oh my god,” Reed hissed. “I was only going to scare him. I wasn’t really going to kill him. I’m fucked now.”

  “Yes, you are,” Henry said.

  That night they threw the body into the woods. A few days later, some local hunters found Joel’s body. Reed thought he was home free, as the gun was unregistered, and they had no way of linking him to the crime.

  To his horror, they began to play Joel’s songs everywhere; there was not a station you could turn to that wasn’t playing something.

  Henry turned up the radio, bobbing his head to ‘You May Be Right’. “They always do this when an artist dies. They make them out to be some sort of rock ‘n’ roll god. Hell, I bet they play him more than ever now.”

  Reed put his face down into his hands and wept. “I can’t do nuthin’ right.”

  The Thursday Night Poker Players

  A B-Movie Tribute

  The odd thing about the whole situation was that murdering my wife wasn’t even the highlight of the day. A police car had pulled up into the driveway. It was Ernie Johnson, a friend of mine. He was one of the Thursday night poker players of which I was a part. I smiled as he strugg
led to get his obese body from the driver’s seat. I could actually see the steering wheel turning from his belly trying to squeeze out. He seemed to almost flow out of the car as if he was a mass of gelatinous flesh. Ernie once said that the chief had told him if he didn’t lose weight then they were going to have to fire him. Ernie had said that he’d slap them with a discrimination suit if they ever tried to take his job.

  “Hell, they can’t discriminate against me just because I’m a fat bastard,” Ernie had said at the poker table, blowing rings of marijuana smoke into the air. “Fat people got rights, too.” Everybody had erupted into laughter after the last statement. “What?” he had said, sending everyone into uncontrollable giggles.

  Last night had been a particularly humorous night. That night Joe Spencer had brought a bag of marijuana to the party. By the time we were done playing, the whole bag was gone.

  I watched as Ernie waddled down the sidewalk to my front door, pulling his pants up as he went. He looked around nervously, his eyes scanning around for some unseen predator. I was about to grab the doorknob when I damn near got my hand shot off.

  I jumped back and slid onto the kitchen floor, sending pieces of wood and chairs flying in all directions. I immediately hid behind the overturned kitchen table and waited.

  The sound of gunfire exploded through the house as Ernie shot my front door to pieces. I peeked over the table and watched as my chubby friend attempted to tiptoe through my living room. The guy had just shot my door to wood chips and now he was trying to be quiet.

  “Ernie!” I yelled from behind the table. “It’s me Walter! Don’t shoot!”

  “That you behind the table, Walter?” Ernie asked.

  “Didn’t I just say that, you dumbfuck fat bastard?”

  “Just because it sounds like you, don’t make it so, Walter. Things ain’t right around here.”

  “Damn, Ernie,” I said, peeking up over the table. He was looking at me nervously, his gun shaking. “What in the hell are you doing? You ever hear of fucking knocking?”

  “How am I supposed to know it’s you?” Ernie asked suspiciously. “Ethel almost had me tricked. Fool woman almost killed me this morning. I had to kill her, Walter. Something is going wrong. The whole town of Rawley is closed off. We’re completely surrounded by guys in camouflage wearing gas masks. People are attacking each other in the streets.”