A Tale from the Hills (29 page)

Charleston was the closest city to Wilmington. Charlotte was close too, but in a different direction. Savannah was not too far from Charleston, and Atlanta and Jacksonville were within driving range of Savannah. All of those cities were easily within William’s driving range, and he could almost reach all of them in one day. If he was reading the maps right, none of the cities were too far away to be his new home. He was relatively sure that he was reading themaps right, but he would never ever ask anyone to check after him for accuracy. He guarded his privacy much too much for that to happen. Besides, he did not care if any of his timetables were off by an hour or two, because he did not have to answer to anyone, and he was going to make damned sure that he never did.

Unless he decided to move to Charlotte, all of the other cities on his list of possibilities were in the same direction. He eliminated Charlotte for that very reason and decided that he would leave his other options open. When he left Wilmington for the last time, he would be traveling Highway 17 South, destination relatively unknown, but lots of possibilities.

As a reward for deciphering the maps so quickly and so easily, and coming up with his travel plans without any major hitches, he decided to have just one more Sunday night fling before he left Wilmington for good. He wanted to make sure that Wilmington did not forget him anytime soon. Since he had a car he was no longer confined to the waterfront area and his concern about police interference was practically nil. He wanted his grand finale adventure to be something for the history books.

When he reached his car on that fateful Sunday afternoon, he walked all around it to make sure that no one had violated its exterior. That was the downside for having to park it so far away from the boarding house. He valued his possessions as much as he valued his privacy and he hated to leave the car in a vulnerable spot. When he was satisfied that the car was in the same condition as he left it, he unlocked the door and positioned himself behind the wheel. His heart beat faster as he reviewed the lesson from the day before inside his head. When he finally started the engine, he breathed a sigh of relief that he did it right on the very first try. The soft hum of the engine calmed his nerves and relieved his insecurity about driving on his own.

He was amazed at the size and diversity of the neighborhoods, and other sites of the city that he had missed by not driving sooner. There were entire communitiesthat he never even knew existed, because his entire world had revolved around the waterfront. Not that he really gave a good damn about them, he just liked knowing that they existed. Anyway, he was still leaving Wilmington in another day or two.

It was much too early for his big adventure to begin, so he practiced his driving skills while he waited on darkness to come. He had time to think about his life up to that point while he tooled around in his fancy new toy; nothing earthshaking or philosophical, only generalities. He could count on one hand the number of times that he had gone to the movies in his life. He had gone twice in Wilkesboro and not over three times in Wilmington. But he really enjoyed the big screen exploits of actors like Errol Flynn and Clark Gable, and Montgomery Cliff. He identified his won late night dramas with the bold adventures that he saw at the Millwald and the Cameo theaters. His adventures always had happy endings too, like most of the movies that he watched so intently. His souvenirs however, reminded him that his own adventures were quite real. Otherwise they would just be color versions of black and white movies. And in his ‘movies’, he was the writer, and director, and the magnificent star at the very same time. And if someone was shot, they definitely did not get back up.

Hunger forced him to take a brief respite from driving, but only long enough for him to try one of the new drive-in restaurants that would soon dot the highways of America. He could actually order his food from his car, and sit there and eat it too. He heard some people in an old jalopy beside of him call it ‘fast food’, and he thought that the name was catchy. He feasted on greasy hamburgers and salty French fries, and washed it all down with the best Coca-Cola that he had ever tasted. He pulled away from the drive-in with a full stomach and happy, and ready to begin his big adventure.

He had already decided against driving along the waterfront because of the increased police activity. It was very handy now for him to drive downtown or uptown, oreven to the truck stops that dotted the highways around Wilmington. There was something about truck stops that intrigued him. Twenty-four hours a day, every day, those self sufficient islands along the highways were bustling with all kinds of activity. His old friend, dead Alex, told him that there was lots of fun to be had for a buck or two in every truck stop that he had ever seen. William still trusted Alex’s judgment even though he almost got him killed in Wilkesboro. Alex paid dearly for his mistake at Paradise, so William had no other choice but to forgive him for his slip up.

While William was deep in thought about his plans for the night, he passed a sign that read Dixieland Truck stop two miles ahead. It was almost as if fate had stepped in and decided for him what he would be doing as the main event of his big adventure. His heart began to pound inside his chest in anticipation of what was going to take place that very night. The excitement quickly waned when he drove into the parking lot and discovered that the truck stop was closed for a complete remodel. A sign on the door suggested that it would be at least two months before operations would resume.

“Goddamn!” he shouted to the windshield.

He spun the car around in the gravels and speeded back toward the highway. He was traveling so fast that he almost missed seeing the hitchhiker that was standing beside of the road. Even in the dark William could tell that the man looked much too old to be hitchhiking, especially on a busy highway and on such a dark night. A completely unexpected feeling of compassion came over William and he decided to give the old man a ride. He quickly turned the car around and drove back to the spot where the man was standing only moments earlier. The old man was no where to be found. At first William thought that he must have imagined the whole thing, but a movement in the bushes caught his attention. He strained his eyes sure enough the man was there. William got out of his car to investigate.

When he was close enough to see the old man clearly, he immediately stopped in his tracks. Even though it had been a long time since he had seen the picture in the old metal frame, he remembered enough of the details to think that he recognized the old man. He turned and ran back to his car as quickly as he could. William was so scared and upset that he pulled back onto the highway directly in front of an oncoming car. The other driver slammed on his brakes, barely avoiding a terrible accident. When he was able to pass the obviously shook up William, the driver screamed obscenities and flashed a finger sign. William was so spooked by the old man that he did not even notice the other driver.

Had it all been an illusion? Was he going stark raving crazy? Had he finally lost his troubled mind? There was no other explanation for the appearance of the old man. The man in the picture had been dead and probably burning in Hell for many years. William had not dreamed of him since he left Wilkesboro all those months ago. His old nemesis, that had tortured him in his dreams since he was a little boy, was suddenly back. William hoped that seeing him again was not a sign of terrible trials and tribulations to come. He could not and would not allow those things to happen.

William drove directly from the spot where he saw the old man to the waterfront. He made up his mind along the way that the first person that he saw alone would have some very bad luck too, the worst possible kind.

The old man that William saw walking along the highway had absolutely no connection to him, either real or imagined. He had simply walked away from the old folks home about a mile up the highway. It was not the first time that he had sneaked away, but it was definitely the last time. The young man in the black car had terrified him so badly that he panicked. In an effort to get away, he ran into the path of a delivery truck. The driver of the truck did not see the old man until it was too late to stop. They found the old man’s shoes fifty feet away from the spot where they found his crumpled body. William had actually succeeded in killing someone early in his big adventure but he did not get the benefit of knowing about it. It would have been such a relief for him to know that the old man was dead. He had been languishing in the back of William’s mind for all of those months and years, and now he was back in the forefront, ready to resume his torture tactics.

Nothing short of a miracle could have saved the lonely sailor who was walking along the pier when William arrived at the waterfront. Without saying a word to the poor man, or even giving him a clue that he was about to die, William got out of his car, walked over to face him, and shot him point blank between the eyes. Before he even had time to fall into the cold water, William grabbed his hat from his bleeding head, and shot him two more times in his upper body.

By the time that the old man had slipped back into the deep canyon of his troubled mind, two more men were dead along the waterfront. William had parked his car and was walking along the boardwalk when he noticed the two men in the shadows. When he got close enough to discover what the men were doing, he knew that they were much too preoccupied with each other to pay any attention to him. He watched the men twisting and writhing and pleasuring themselves as they were entertaining him, until they were about to reach a climax. He decided to join in the fun. They were still locked in a surprised embrace when they dead bodies were found later that same night by a policeman making his rounds.

In all, four people lost their lives that last Sunday night that William Hill spent in Wilmington, having his big adventure. Three of the deaths were tied directly to the waterfront killer. The old man’s death was ruled accidental. William added a sailor’s hat speckled with blood and the left shoes of two pairs of shoes to his collection of souvenirs when he returned to the boarding house shortly after midnight. He was still very uneasy about seeing the old man again, but he slept like a baby because of the sacrifice of the men on the waterfront. His big adventure had ended well after such a shaky start. He was ready to leave the city by the ocean with memories and souvenirs that would last him a lifetime.

***********

The next day’s headlines read, “The Waterfront Killer Strikes Again”.

While William was packing his car with all of his belongings and souvenirs, elsewhere in the city people were reading about his latest exploits. He suspected that the bodies had already been found, and that he was again the star attraction in the newspaper. He looked forward to reading about himself while he had breakfast. But first things first, and he wanted to have the car ready so that he could leave just as soon as he finished eating and reading the paper.

He packed the car as neatly as he kept his room at the boarding house. Even after he was long gone, the landlady would always say that she had never had a tenant who took better care of his room than William Hill. She always thought that he was a bit of an odd ball, but his habits and hygiene were immaculate. She did think that it was strange that he did not tell her that he was leaving, but his rent was paid up for at least two more weeks when he left the city.

Like Jack and several of the other men that he worked with on the docks, William did not bother to work out a notice when he left his job. Ever since the murders had begun on the waterfront, men were leaving practically on a daily basis. There was always a mass exodus for the first few days immediately following a new murder. William’s boss figured that the killer had scared him away from his job like so many of the others. William had always been a hard worker but his mood swings were hard to deal with. Even though they were going to be short handed for a while on the docks, not a single person would ever say that William would be missed.

***********

William sat down to breakfast shortly before seven on that Monday morning. He picked up a newspaper outside of the restaurant. He was excited to read about his big nighton the town from another point of view. He was a little anxious though that the newspaper story might connect him in some way with the two men who were shot while they were engaged in such deviant behavior. He had good reason to be concerned. The story hinted of a homosexual tryst, and that the killer probably knew at least one of the victims. There was also a hint that jealousy might have been the reason for the shootings. There was no mention of the dead sailor, so William assumed that he had not been found yet.

William became furious when he read the story. The newspaper had completely butchered the story that he had been so proud to direct. He wanted to write a letter to the newspaper’s editor, to tell him just how ridiculous the story was. He wanted to find the reporter who wrote the outrageous story, and end his life slowly and painfully. He decided instead to suffer in silence because it was not even worth his time and energy to find the lunatic. He was not worth the bullet that it would take to blow his brains out of the back of his head. William could not understand why the newspaper would want to give the shootings a sexual connotation in the first place. Secretly he did enjoy watching the two men together, and if he was tortured he might even admit to wanting to join the men before he changed his mind and ended their lives. But he would neveradmit that little detail to anyone, ever.

**********

He was on the road and in search of a new home before eight a.m. He was not sure where his new home would be, but he was sure that he would recognize it when he got there. His stomach was full and his mind was filled with the crazy shit that he had just read in the newspaper. He did not see how anyone could take that kind of trash seriously. The only accurate part of the whole story was the fact that the men had been shot. And there were three instead of two. It wasn’t his fault if the authorities were too inept to find a body floating in the water, or better yet, washed up on shore. And the rest of the story was pure fabrication. He thought that it was written to insult his intelligence, or make him angry. Angry enough to try something foolish and get himself caught. But he was much too smart for that to happen. It would be a cold day in Hell before he fell for a trick like that.