Dark Corners - Twelve Tales of Terror (5 page)

“
Alessio
took the bucket and began to lower it down. I watched from a
distance, not wanting to be any nearer to the hole than I had to be.
As I watched Alessio work, I was overcome with jealous rage. It came
down to that word again. Opportunity. I think I had already decided I
was going to do it, and even as I crept towards him, I was already
thinking of what I would tell my parents. I would tell them that he
slipped as he was leaning over the edge, and although I tried to save
him, I couldn’t get to him in time. It was certainly plausible.
I knew the well was deep and that Alessio couldn’t swim, and if
went ahead the outcome would likely be his death. I was only a few
steps away from him now and was psyching myself up to do it. He was
concentrating on reeling in the bucket, which was taking considerable
effort now that it was full. I was just about to commit and had my
hands out ready to push him, when he turned towards me.

“
‘
Help me with this, it’s heavy,’ he
said between gritted teeth. He reminded me of my father, framed there
against the golden afternoon sun, and I knew I had come too far to
turn back. I bent as if to take some of the strain on the rope, then
at the last minute, lunged at him and grabbed for his leg. He must
have seen me, because he dropped the bucket and half turned towards
me, but I was too quick, and already too strong for him, despite
being younger. There was a moment of stalemate and Alessio seemed
suspended in midair, his arms pin-wheeling as I tipped him over the
edge. He screamed as he fell, the sound reverberating off the stone
walls, then coming to a sudden end with a wet, gargled snap. Those
next few seconds are as clear to me as any memory I have had since.
The utter silence as I peered over the edge, my heart racing inside
my chest as I listened and willed my eyes to see through the
darkness. I half expected him to call out to me, or to hear him
moaning and splashing in pain, but the silence told me all I needed
to know. I waited and watched. For how long I couldn’t tell
you, but as time went by, I was more and more sure that he was dead.
I knew what I had done was wrong. My mother had taught me about the
rights and wrongs of life and death by the time I was five, which
made the feelings that raced around my head even more confusing. I
was euphoric.”

Elgin
watched carefully from his seat across the bars, his face still
completely unreadable.

“
Did
they believe the story? Your family I mean.”

“
Of
course they did. My father made me go with him to the well and rig up
a harness to get Alessio out. He thought it was a rescue of course,
but I knew the truth. I remember my father lowering himself down, me
and a couple of the men who worked on the vineyard taking the strain
of the rope. It seemed like he was down there for a very long time,
and only then did I consider what might happen to me if Alessio was
somehow still alive. I began to panic, and wanted to let go of the
rope and leave my father down there with his precious son—but
then I heard him scream. It was a raw, anguished, primal sound, and I
knew that Alessio’s days of bullying me or saying anything to
anyone were over. When they pulled him up, his face was twisted and
blue, and his head flopped around loosely on his broken neck. I had
to fight back a smile as I looked at my brother, staring up at the
sky with his glassy doll’s eyes. I approached my father and
laid a hand on his shoulder. Not because I was upset, but because
that’s what I would have been expected to do. He whirled on me
and shoved me aside, glaring at me with red-ringed eyes, containing
more hate than I had ever seen.

“
‘
You let him die, you little bastard. Why couldn’t
it have been you?!’ he raged at me. Then he began to weep, his
massive shoulders shaking with his sobs as he stroked my dead
brother’s wet hair.”

Roberts
smiled as he looked Elgin in the eye. He thought he might see a
glimmer of humanity, but he was met with the same blank expression.

“
And
that, Mr. Elgin, is how it began. Hell of a story, huh?”

“
Did
they ever suspect you had anything to do with it?”

“
If
they did, they never said anything. After that day, my father barely
spoke to me again. He died two years after Alessio. He was never the
same after that day at the well.”

Elgin
looked at him with raised eyebrows, and Roberts knew what he was
thinking. He snorted roughly and offered a wry smile.

“
I
didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re thinking.
Although I would have, if I had found a way to. I grew to hate him as
much as he hated me.”

“
What
happened?”

“
Cancer.
They gave him a year, but he only lasted five months. That stuff
don’t fuck around, Mr. Elgin. Even when he was a flesh-covered
skull on his deathbed, he still couldn’t look me in the eye. I
think on some level he suspected what I had done to Alessio, and felt
partly responsible. I wasn’t sorry when he died. It was like a
weight lifting off my shoulders.

“
I
thought that by satisfying the urge to kill with my brother, the
desire would fade away, and I would become the same as everyone else.
But it didn’t. Instead, it grew, festered, and swelled—
my own cancer, if you will. I fought against it for a while, but
things at the vineyard took a turn for the worse. Without my father
to run things, the place began to fall apart. The family unit, of
which I was barely a part of anyway, started to crumble, and when I
was thirteen, my mother sold the vineyard to the Picenzis. My oldest
brother, Marco, moved away to northern Italy with his girlfriend. My
two sisters stayed in Italy with my uncle, and as far as I know are
still there, married with families of their own. My mother took me
with her to America, where we settled in New York, in a shitty
apartment above a filthy dry cleaners. It was very different from the
open fields and clean air of the vineyard, but I didn’t care. I
had half hoped that with my mother to myself, she would finally give
me the attention I felt I deserved. But with a son and husband
buried, and the vineyard lost, she found her own comfort—the
southern kind—and she was knocking back at least a bottle a
day. The place may have changed, but the situation hadn’t. I
was left to my own devices. I felt like that dog, Mr. Elgin—the
one with its teeth around the neck of its prey. I didn’t want
to kill because of some bizarre need or means of atoning for my
shitty childhood. I wanted to kill because I knew I would enjoy it.”

Roberts
felt good saying it aloud. His back had begun to ache from sitting on
the edge of the bed, and he stood and stretched. He watched Elgin
carefully and saw that he was smiling. Not quite the wide mouthed
lizard grin from before, but more of an
I know
something you don’t know
kind of smile.
His stomach felt bloated, and without excusing himself, he crossed to
the toilet and began to urinate loudly. He couldn’t see Elgin
from where he was, but he would bet on him having that same blank but
interested look on his face. He finished his business and returned to
his bunk, and sure enough, Elgin was waiting and as hard to read as
ever.

“
Just
over half an hour left. We should continue.”

Roberts
nodded grimly. He suddenly wasn’t so indifferent about dying as
he was earlier that morning.

“
What
do you want to know?”

“
That’s
up to you. Whatever feels right to talk about.”

He
thought for a moment, then lowered his head and spoke to the bare
white floor.

“
Those
first years in New York were lonely ones. I thought I’d known
isolation back at the vineyard, but that was a picnic compared to
this. Even though I felt isolated from my family, there was always
activity in the house. My brothers or sisters arguing over the
television, or how they didn’t like whatever was for dinner
that night, or my father complaining how the grapes weren’t as
good as they’d been the season before and how it would affect
his profits. Whatever it was, there was always activity. But now
things had changed, and I would come and go from that stinking
apartment with my mother either drunk and on her way to sleep, or
just waking up and starting to drink. I didn’t bitch about it.
There was no point. Let the old fuck drink herself to her grave, if
that’s what she wants... I was already planning my next kill.”

“
What
happened to waiting for opportunity?”

Roberts
smiled. It was without humor.

“
That’s
a pretty naive question, Mr. Elgin. Opportunity is fine, but if you
don’t know what to do when it knocks, then what is it but a
wasted
opportunity.
And I was keen to make sure that when the time came, I would know
exactly what to do.”

“
I
see your point. Please continue.”

“
I…
I invented an imaginary friend. It seems stupid and childish, and I
suppose it was. But to me he seemed real. It was like…he was
the real me. The one who didn’t have to pretend to be normal
like everyone else. It sounds strange, but I think he became a real
thing. He and I would discuss methods to kill and not be caught. That
was the key thing. We were planning for the long term.”

“
What
was he like?”

Roberts
chuckled and shook his head. “It would sound stupid to you.”

“
You
don’t know that. I’m a hard man to surprise.”

“
I
don’t doubt it. You might be too young to remember who I’m
talking about anyways.”

“
I’m
older than I look,” Elgin responded, flashing the lizard smile.
Roberts felt gooseflesh prickle on his skin.

“
I
imagined he was this Italian gangster type guy, with slicked black
hair and a smooth little moustache. Did you ever see the original
Rocky movie?”

“
Of
course. I think everyone saw that movie.”

“
There
was an actor called Joe Spinell. He played a loan shark called Gazzo
who gives Rocky a job collecting unpaid debts.”

“
I
know the actor. He also played Willi Cici in the Godfather, if it’s
the same one I’m thinking of.”

Roberts
slapped his thigh and offered a broad grin.

“
That’s
him, that’s the one! That’s what my guy looked like. All
smooth and dark skinned, slick and confident. He was everything I
ever wanted to be. I even gave him a name.”

“
What
was he called?”

“
I
called him Monde.”

“
No
first name?”

“
Didn’t
see the need. I liked the snappiness of it. Just one word that you
could say quick and easy.”

“
Did
you know he wasn’t real?”

Richards
looked offended. “Of course I did. Just because I like to kill
doesn’t mean I’m off my damn rocker.”

“
I
never said it did. I was just asking.”

“…
Anyway, Monde and me, we planned and schemed, and
sometimes he did seem real. He suggested things I never would have
thought of.”

“
Like
what?” Elgin asked, as he shifted position.

“
Like
where to find our first victims. There was no shortage of people in
New York, but that didn’t mean we could just charge out into
the streets and start waving a knife around. Monde said we needed to
be sensible. We needed to hone our craft. I wasn’t sure what he
meant, but he spelled it out for me. The homeless. There were around
a quarter-million of them in New York alone, and they would be easy
pickings. They were already anonymous and nobody would care if a
couple went missing or turned up dead. It was perfect. We had already
spent weeks wandering the streets and looking for the best places,
seeing where they spent their nights. Eventually we were ready.”

Roberts
trailed off, and his brow furrowed.

“
Is
everything ok?”

“
Yeah.
It’s just that bringing everything back is not always good, you
know?”

“
Guilt?”

“
Guilt?”
Roberts repeated, with a short bark of a laugh. “Don’t be
ridiculous. You must have read about me—you know what I said at
my trial.”

“
I
do. You said you felt no pity or remorse for any of your victims or
their families. It was a powerful statement.”

“
Yeah,
and it wasn’t just for the TV cameras either. That’s how
I felt then, and it’s how I feel now.”

“
So
why did you look so…Conflicted just now?”

“
You
know what, Mr. Elgin,” Roberts raged, suddenly feeling
defensive.

“
This
has been all give and no take, and I don’t feel like talking to
you anymore. I think you can take your job and shove it up your
prissy little ass!”

Roberts
was hot and sticky, and yes, a little afraid. Afraid that his life
was scheduled to end in a matter of hours. The dim realization crept
up on him that he would never sleep in the bed he was now sitting on.
He wondered why the cells here even had beds at all.

He
had hoped to see Elgin beg and plead for him to continue, but as
always, he was sitting impassively and watching Roberts with mild
amusement. Suddenly feeling stupid for his outburst, Roberts sat and
continued his story without prompting.