Chelsea Avenue Read online

  The crowd roared as he stiff-armed a small tree to his right, cutting back with a high-step to get past a stack of cinderblocks.

  “I’ll finally get the record, finally be the only name on that wall and that plaque,” he said through clenched teeth. His breathing was steady, and his eyes were focused on the prize he was speeding toward, the gorgeous white lines of the end zone and victory.

  Rick Toland hit the tree face-first, running so fast that his nose and jaw shattered instantly, and the sharp branch jammed so quickly into his left eye socket that all he felt was the roar of the crowd.

  Chapter 9

  July 8th 1995

  “So soon?” Henry asked no one in particular as he sat on his couch watching the local news channel. At first, he’d tried to ignore the call, thinking that it was a mistake. He’d dreamed horrific things the last seven nights, unmentionably vile deeds he’d done to people. They were so real, so felt, that he’d tried to stay awake as much as possible. When he closed his eyes, the same visions swam in his head, and when he woke, he felt like he'd gone to sleep minutes ago. He wasn't in the best of shape, and now, this was making it worse.

  He rubbed Butch’s head and spooned some baked beans into his mouth. He wanted to laugh. His dog was his only friend, and he used his friendship to try to fight the voice trying to speak to him even when he was awake. It’s like an asshole talking trash in a bar. You ignore him, and it goes away.

  The pain was instantaneous and severe, forcing him to drop the spoon. Butch whimpered at his feet.

  Henry stood on weak legs and went to get Butch’s leash. I’m going, I’m going, he thought as loud as he could so the pressure would stop. It was only 7:15 at night, much too early to be doing this. He clipped the leash onto the dog’s collar and changed his T-shirt to the black one he liked, checking himself out in the full-length mirror. Henry sucked in his gut, but it wasn’t enough. Right out of high school, he was still rough and handsome; now, he was simply rough. His once-muscular arms had been driven by gravity to flab, and his love handles spilled from the tight T-shirt. His headache subsided, a faint touch of it hiding in his frontal lobe.

  He closed his eyes and wondered why he was doing this, which made Henry frown. He remembered, in his dreams, that specific items were always at hand, but he couldn’t remember a single one right now. When he strained to think on the subject, the migraine pulsed sharply and suddenly, almost bringing him to his knees.

  As soon as he picked up the dog’s leash, he felt a pinch in his forehead, an uncomfortable feeling. He let go of the leash, and it ceased. He knew what that meant. “Sorry, but I guess I’m going alone on this one.”

  He stared at Butch and felt tears welling in his eyes. “You’re the best friend I ever had,” he whispered. Butch perked his ears, dancing around, waiting to walk outside with his master. Instead, the loyal dog got a tight hug from his best friend.

  To Henry, the six-block walk to Chelsea Avenue took forever. At thirty-three years old, he flashed through a myriad of memories from his life: some good, most bad. He tried, unsuccessfully, to push them away, especially the beatings at the hands of the neighborhood kids. He remembered the shortcomings of his parents, growing up poor and without love.

  By the time he got to the vacant lot and stepped over the crime scene tape flapping in the light breeze, he realized he was crying. The weeds had been trampled over, and some of the bigger debris had been piled at the rear of the lot.

  It was still light out, the sun beginning to dive on the horizon, still over an hour before it grew dark. The far corners of the lot were already enveloped in darkness, and Henry realized that the outskirts of the lot were always bathed in black as if the light failed to penetrate the recesses.

  Suddenly, it all came to Henry, and he knew.

  It’s looking at me, Henry thought. The thing was here with him now; it never left this filthy place. Was it trapped here? How far did its reach extend? Henry wondered if he could simply ignore the pressure and pain building in his skull when he turned and walked away from there, got on a plane, and flew to California or another country. Did the thing’s tendrils reach across time zones? Continents?

  Care to find out?

  Henry fell to his knees at the sound of the voice screaming in his head, a voice that had haunted his nightmares. He’d never actually heard a voice. It was always more of a stroking suggestion across his brain, but now, he’d heard the dripping voice, and it scared him.

  Think you can run far enough away from me?

  Falling to the ground, Henry squeezed the sides of his head. He felt warmth running around his torso and realized that he’d pissed himself. He pushed against his ears until he thought he was going to pass out. Slowly, he removed his hands and expected another mental blast in his head.

  All he heard was the waves crashing on the beach across the street and the distant, steady hum of traffic. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Do you hear me? I’m sorry for thinking that.” I’m totally fucked, Henry knew. It can read my thoughts… How can you combat that?

  He couldn’t, and he knew it. He was resigned to the fact that his will was not his own. He hoped this would all end as quickly as possible now. “Tell me what to do,” he said angrily and immediately apologized for his tone. No use in pissing it off again. He thought that was a funny thing right now, feeling the urine drying cold against his leg and the wind playing with his wet pants.

  “Now what?” he finally asked. Somewhere down the road, a car alarm went off, and snippets of someone singing, down on the beach, came to him. A dog barked, and he thought of Butch, probably still sitting by the door, waiting for his master to come home.

  He felt compelled to walk around the corner to the closed deli. He stopped in front of the dirty payphone outside, and his fingers began dialing a number he didn’t know. It was local, he knew that. He also knew that he wouldn’t like whoever it was that picked up the other end.

  “Detective Santiago. Can I help you?”

  Who? Henry held his breath in a last-ditch attempt to keep from doing something monumentally stupid here.

  “Hello?”

  Henry exhaled as the pressure in his skull appeared. He tried to fight his lips, tongue, and vocal chords from moving, but it was in vain. “I’m waiting for you on Chelsea Avenue.”

  There was a pause on the line. “Who is this?”

  Henry kept talking, unable to stop himself. “Come alone, Detective Santiago, and I won’t run. I just want to talk to you before I turn myself in. You need to come to the lot and meet your maker.”

  Henry didn’t wait for an answer before hanging up the receiver and slowly walking back to the lot.

  By the time a car pulled up and a man leaped from the car, Henry was sitting on the ground, picking at stray grass and weeping.

  “I need you to stand up.”

  Henry did as he was told and wiped the snot from his nose onto his sleeve. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes, like you asked. I’m Detective Santiago.” He had a gun in hand, pointed at the ground, but Henry wasn’t scared for some reason.

  “Thanks for coming,” Henry said.

  “Sure, why not. Do you have any weapons on you?” Manny lifted his gun.

  Henry ignored the question. “I came here to get this all off of my chest. You see, I’m possessed, and I need to be put in jail for what I’ve done.”

  Manny edged forward a step at a time, the gun never wavering. “I’m here to listen.”

  “I’ve never done anything like this before, I swear. I don’t even have a record, not a parking ticket.” Henry looked around, causing Manny to stop. “It all comes back to this place, this lot. This is where it began, do you understand?”

  “I need you to put your hands up and lock your fingers behind your head.”

  “There is an evil power at work here, making me kill those people. It won’t stop until everyone on the list has been killed. Don’t you get it? I’m just one small weapon in its arsenal. I did wh
at I had to do; it wouldn’t let me use my own free will.”

  Manny got within four feet of Henry, leading with his gun. “I am going to ask you, one more time, to put your hands on your head. We can take a ride to the station and have a nice, friendly chat there. I’ll make us a pot of coffee, and we can kick back and shoot the shit. Sound good?”

  “That does sound good.” Henry put his hands over his head and locked his fingers. “I feel better already. I just hope that someone will be able to take care of Butch for me.”

  “Who’s Butch?” Manny asked and gripped Henry’s hands and twisted them down in one fluid motion.

  “Butch is my dog.”

  Manny’s legs shook, and his arms went numb, the gun swinging to the side.

  Henry felt the nudge on his hands and tried to fight it, but it was impossible. He watched in detached awe as his arms swung around and connected, squarely, with the detective’s jaw and left ear, driving him to the ground. He wanted to apologize, but he couldn’t move his mouth. Instead, he felt his body bend at the waist and his hands lock on the throat of the officer.

  Henry was sure that the officer knew that he wasn’t doing this of his own volition. Henry tried to fight it and tried to let go of the man’s neck, but it was no use.

  As Detective Manny Santiago’s eyes began rolling in his head and his struggling became softer, Henry suddenly let go.

  Thank you, Henry screamed in his head. This man has nothing to do with any of this… I’m not a cop killer now, Henry thought.

  Maybe he was. His controlled hand reached down and yanked the officer’s gun from his hand and pointed it at the detective.

  You have ten seconds to say whatever it is you want to say to this cop, but that’s it. With that, the bond was broken, and Henry nearly fell backwards.

  “I’m sorry. I have no control over any of this. You have to believe me,” Henry pleaded. He realized that he was waving the gun around and tried to hand it back to Manny, who was still on the ground trying to catch his breath and choking.

  Henry didn’t know what to do and heard a countdown in his head, but he didn’t know if it was real or imagined. “The killings are going to continue until all of the wrongs have been righted and everyone that escaped is killed. I know that on the anniversary, there will be deaths. There are eighty-nine lives it needs to take back.” Henry looked to his left. “I was here hours ago, before the sun rose. I strangled two women and discarded their bodies in the weeds like trash. I’m so sorry.”

  Five…four…three…

  “I’m sorry,” Henry repeated.

  Henry pointed the gun at Manny, who froze.

  Then Henry turned the gun on himself, put it in his mouth, and blew his brains out into the weeds and refuse of Chelsea Avenue.

  Chapter 10

  July 8th 1996

  In the middle of teaching her first grade class about penguins, Miss Theresa Barrett stopped, suddenly, and cocked her head, staring out the window. Her eyes fluttered and began to tear, her mouth’s corners quivering to the beat of her racing heart.

  There was something out there, something calling her from the east. When she removed her purse from a desk drawer and walked quickly from the room, her students sat and waited, patiently, for her return.

  Her Honda Civic was waiting for her in the faculty parking lot, and she found herself jogging to get to the car, an invisible hand pushing her along. Time was running out, but for what, she did not know. She tore out of the parking lot and shot into the street without looking for traffic, her heart trying desperately to punch out of her throat.

  Ten minutes later, she merged onto I-78 going east toward New Jersey, barely controlling the urge to slam her foot on the gas and drive at a hundred miles an hour, but a small voice in her head told her to pace herself, to stick to five to ten miles over the speed limit.

  Chelsea.

  Theresa didn’t know who Chelsea was, but the name repeated itself over and over like a mantra in her head, and she turned on the car stereo to drown it out. It was no use. Despite listening to a Kelly Clarkson song at the highest volume, it was not enough.

  Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea…

  A glance in the rearview mirror made her gasp. This morning, as she was brushing her long, blonde hair and applying her lipstick, she was happy with her looks. At twenty-four years old, she had beautiful skin and a great smile. She wasn’t conceited, but she was honest enough with herself to know that she was above average and that men liked her. Quite a few of the children’s dads (even the happily married ones) went out of their way to smile at her, and a few had flirted openly. But as she looked at herself in the mirror, she looked haggard; hair wisps clung to her forehead in sweat. She looked ten years older, her eyes sunken in her skull and lips a thin sneer. She looked like her mother, and she looked away.

  A half an hour later, she was firmly in New Jersey on I-287 South. Reluctantly, she pulled off to get gas for the Civic. Her hands twitched as she leapt from the car and swiped her credit card.

  “Hey, you can’t do that!” a burly man in a dirty Yankees baseball cap said as he waddled toward her. “This ain’t Pennsy,” he said and spit on the ground to his left. “It’s illegal to pump your own gas here, honey.”

  Without a word and quite distracted, she got back in the car. Her hands were shaking as she pulled a twenty-dollar bill from her wallet. “Sorry,” she mumbled when he was finished, but he frowned and took the cash.

  Once again, she was off and running, willing her foot to ease up on the gas pedal. What am I doing? Where am I going?

  An image of her boyfriend, Donald, came to her mind, and she tried to focus on it. “I need your help, Donald. I need your strength to get me back home,” she said aloud. Her hands remained on the steering wheel, and the car continued to move east without a destination in her head. Her subconscious was pushing her along, something that she didn’t understand.

  Donald was supposed to be taking her out to dinner tonight to the Chinese buffet that they loved so much. The latest Will Ferrell movie was available on DVD, and the plan was to stuff themselves with food, grab a copy of the DVD at Blockbuster, and retire to her apartment for some comedy, a few drinks, and some intimacy. She missed Donald already and wondered if he loved her like she truly loved him. She glanced at herself in the rearview mirror again.

  She hoped that they could get to the next level of their relationship. After dating for seven months and crashing at one another’s places more often than not, it seemed inevitable that she’d have to push the subject. She was only twenty-four, but she wanted more out of her life, and she wanted a child.

  “I can do a better job than my mother did.”

  A fellow teacher at the Allentown Prime Elementary School (he taught third grade), Donald was nearing thirty but looked older—more refined, he called it—with premature gray at his temples and in his mustache. He was still fit, hitting the gym every other day before school. Unlike Theresa, he had children: a five year-old son, Lukas, and a daughter, Alicia, age three. Theresa had met both of the children two weeks ago at a McDonald’s, where Donald introduced her as his girlfriend and both kids stared, blankly, at her before ignoring her for the rest of the brief visit.

  “We’ll have to work on those relationships, eh, Miss Barrett? Nothing like kids or pets to hate the new person in your life.”

  At some point, while she was busy talking to herself, she had switched onto the Garden State Parkway, paid way too many tolls, got off at exit 117, and felt her hands move the steering wheel and point her toward Route 36.

  About seven miles later, she took a jug handle at Main Street in a town called Belford and followed it across and made a right, ending up in the parking lot of the Marina Diner.

  She sat in the car as her body shook. Now what? The impulse to do anything was gone, and her body relaxed, back under her control. She realized that she had to use the bathroom before her bladder exploded. “You brought me two hours away from home to use the bathroom?”<
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  Once inside the diner, she made a beeline to the ladies’ room. It hadn’t occurred to her until this moment to call Donald or the school. What would she say? So, this invisible force had me drive my car from the school to a small town in New Jersey I’d never even heard of, that probably isn’t even on the map, to this diner because I really, really had to pee.

  She checked herself in the bathroom mirror. She still looked wiped out, old, and a bit of a mess. Theresa decided that she’d at least make an attempt and pulled her lipstick from her purse.

  She slipped into a booth and stared at her car in the parking lot.

  “Coffee?’

  Startled, she jumped. A middle-aged waitress in a faded uniform stared down at her. They locked gazes, silently, until the waitress cleared her throat. “Coffee?” she repeated.

  “Oh, sorry… No, can I get a glass of water?”

  The waitress plopped a greasy menu onto the table. “Be right back.”

  Theresa ignored the menu and glanced at the few customers in the diner at this time of day. What time is it? She looked at her watch: 2:22 p.m. School would be letting out in about five minutes. By now, she imagined the panic of faculty and parents alike and hoped that her babies were safe and sound and that another teacher had peeked in on her classroom at some point and come to the rescue.

  Donald would be calling her cell phone if he hadn’t already, but she didn’t want to turn it on. She felt embarrassed and foolish for being here.

  A man at the counter caught her eye because he was staring at her. There was something unnerving about the way he brazenly looked her way. He seemed out of place here for some reason she couldn’t put her finger on. Theresa looked away and put her hands on the menu, pretending to read it. When she looked back up, he was gone.

  “Here’s your water. Are you ready to order?” the waitress asked.