Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Judas
Parcel? Ooo fancy.
A bit vague, but meh, I loved vague. Made me feel like I was the puppet master and could make it all into whatever the fuck I desired.
Dance monkey!
The back junkyard was a maze of rusting car tires, broken pallet thingys, and stacks of scrap metal that smelled like a thousand wet dogs died in each other’s armpits.
Perfect and cozy…Definitely a great place to meet mysterious ‘parcels.’
I crouched behind a dented hatchback car, yet another forgotten memory in this place. But here I could continue surveying the mess. A rat scurried past, squeaking like it knew I was about to screw something up while the demons in my brain debated whether or not to eat it.
“C’mon, Judie, it could taste like a peach. Fuzzy and with a juicy pop.”
My inner demons chortled while I snorted.
“I’ll stick to the candies, thanks. Still can’t eat potatoes after Mary’s special additions.”
“Judie patooty eat that rat’s booty.”
“Shut up, Roxie.”
The sun was low in the sky, streaking the metal with an orange light that reminded me of prison garb. Shadows jumped and flickered like they were alive along the scraps of metal. I wasn’t going back to prison.
Fuck that with a ten-foot pole.
Whatever.
It gave the scene ambiance. I liked the ambiance. It added weight to my existential panic.
The demons shrieked when the last rays of the sun spiked me in the eyeballs through the wall of metal.
Hissssss…
I crept forward, cursing under my breath and rubbing my eyes.
Liebling’s going to kill me when he sees my little present.
My pulse spiked. Particularly with some stupid emotion I wasn’t used to—worry. The other part was so common in my blood it hummed with my heartbeats…thrill. That was the cocktail I ran on lately.
Speaking of cock…
At the far end of the yard, a figure stood, tall and calm like they were delivering something mundane, except I knew better by the souring air alone. That kind of calm was always hiding something deadly.
Or embarrassing.
Or, well, both.
“Welp. Uh…Here it is,” the guy said, dropping a black duffel onto the ground with a thump that echoed between the scrap heaps. In front of him was a plastic tarp covering a very human-sized object inside.
I froze then, realizing yet again I was about to see a dead body. My demons laughed at my discomfort.
You will regret this. Touch it! Touchhh ttthhiisss.
“Oh, I regret everything already,” I muttered. “Especially being saddled with you fuckers.”
I leaned beside the wrap, staring. My mind bounced between curiosity, dread, and an inappropriate joke about my ex-boyfriend’s stuff.
“Hmm. Parcel, my ass,” I muttered. “Let’s see what kind of nightmare you are, stinky.”
The duffel sat there like it was waiting for applause, but I didn’t want to do this. If I were being honest, a year ago, when I set this in motion, determined to crack the handsome little egg that was Randall fucking King, I thought I’d be uncovering a deadbeat mother.
I anticipated a big ‘fuck you up the ass’ speech to the woman who abandoned her sons and left them to fend for themselves in the damn street, but now?
“Do it,” one of the voices crooned. “End it. You know how, Judas.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, waving away the voice. “Take a number. I’ve got business to handle.”
Another one chimed in, nastier and louder, like it wanted a fucking award for getting right inside my ears.
“You’re nothing, Judas. You failed even the basic concept of existence. You aren’t a hero. Let the cop go. End it. You don’t get happily-ever-afters.”
I unzipped the bag halfway and snorted at the continued jabs, their spindly fingers reaching forward and scraping down the tarp. “Wow. Very motivational. Did you rehearse that in the shower or just freestyle the misery?”
The zipper snagged on something, and the stink upped the ante.
Of course.
“You should listen, or you will try to kill us like Larry?”
I tugged harder on the plastic.
“Later damnit,” I said exasperatedly. “Can’t you see I am being an amazing fucking detective? Shut your damn faces.”
The smell hit right up my nose. Not blood, way worse, like old meat you’d forgotten to chuck out. That cold, sweet rot that had flies joining like angels in a holy choir. I wrinkled my nose.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Could we not spring for air-tight packaging? This is why people leave bad reviews, asshole.”
The man grunted at me, and his response was muted by the voices erupting and overlapping, like a gleeful, cruel scream.
“This is your fault.”
“You deserve a tarp like this.”
“Everything ends like this.”
“Die, fag!”
“Wow,” I said, in a deadpanned tone. “Group effort tonight? Cute. Real cute.”
I opened the bag another inch, still not looking inside. My heart wasn’t racing. That was the thing people never understood. Panic implied surprise. I didn’t do surprises. I did commentary, like internal narration, that was or wasn’t under my control.
“We are in control!”
“Alright,” I told the demons, smashing my head hard enough to see the world blur for a minute. “You’ve made your point. Horrible, noted, gold star. Now, shut up while I finish the unboxing of granny’s gift from hell.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the guy who brought it, then back at the bag.
“Will your grave be so smelly?”
I smirked. “Bet. I’ll eat tuna for a week.”
“What will Randall’s look like?”
The smirk on my face vanished, and I ground my teeth so hard I heard the crack shut the demons up.
The guy leaned back, arms crossed, staring like I’d grown a second head. “Uh…you talkin’ to yourself, dude?”
I didn’t even glance at him. Maybe he wasn’t even real. “Yeah. Don’t worry, it’s a full-cast production. Ticket sales aren’t great, but the critics will love it.”
He frowned. “Seriously. You…you’re nuts.”
I was used to that.
I shrugged, one hand on the duffel. “Depends who you ask. Some of them are dead. Some are imaginary, and some are nosey men who goad a stranger, unzipping a very dead body.”
“Don’t get cocky,” the demons hissed.
“Shut up, Geoff,” I muttered, not stopping. The bag was almost unzipped. “Later, we’re doing interpretive dance, wanna join?”
The guy blinked. “Right…uh…the parcel. You gonna open it or—”
I smirked, tugging the zipper fast, making it rip off.
“Happy?” I said, chucking the broken metal at the man.
He just shook his head, muttering something about ‘crazy people’ and stepped back, catching the zipper.
I grinned at my audience. “See, guys? Everyone’s a critic.”
I gave the zipper one last tug. The smell hit me full force. That sweet, sickly cold that I could taste on my tongue. My stomach didn’t flip. I snorted. “Well, you’ve got presentation issues, but she certainly doesn’t have an issue.”
Fuck.
Randall’s mother just lay there like she’d taken one long nap and just…never woke up was a horrible joke. The damn scene made my mouth dry, and my demons? They were losing their tiny little minds.
“We told you! one hissed. You’re pathetic! Cry! Kill! Rot! Die!”
I glanced at them, lined up around me, and rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, later. You’re all so dramatic. Give me a second to do the funeral in style.”
I leaned further toward the bag, studying her. More clinical than anything, but sadly, I was no doctor, and, equally as sad, my crime shows apparently weren’t up to snuff. But curiosity’s a bitch, and she’d arrived at my doorstep, unsolicited.
My brain flickered as my eyes roved over the dead woman. I knew enough about her to fill in some of the blanks of what I was seeing. Her neck was bent, clearly snapped. Likely the cause of death and why Miss Cherry King went MIA from her two teenage boys fifteen years ago.
“Son of a nutcracker,” I muttered. “Liebling…you’re gonna hate me for telling you this. Really, really hate me. But hey—Mom’s not missing anymore. Just…inconveniently deceased.”
The courier shifted nervously. “Uh…you okay, man?”
I smirked at him, loud and flippant. “Perfect. Couldn’t be better. You? You brought me a corpse, and now you’re worried about my mental stability? How kind. What can you tell me about her medical examination report?
My demons erupted again.
“You can’t handle this. You’re weak. Everything ends!”
I waved them off like flies. I looked at the delivery boy and motioned to Miss King.
“Listen, I’m not paid enough to manhandle a corpse, I just deliver packages.”
I quirked an eyebrow at his holier-than-thou act, but shrugged and instead gave the body a little shove that had her toppling downward, and the man shrieked, reaching forward to stop her from falling onto the ground.
I clapped excitedly, pointing at the back of her neck to see the weird symbol…branded into her skin.
“Are you fucking kidding me, freak?” the guy yelled indignantly, trying to hold the stiff with unsteady hands.
I crouched closer, my eyes tracing every line, every crease of her face, the pale, stiff fingers that had once held her boys and been the comfort they needed. My stomach twisted at the thought of Randall missing his mother.
Strangulation. Neck snap. Definitely.
“You’re obsessed,” Geoff-demon hissed.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, waving at the air. “Later. Obsession’s my middle name.”
My eyes stayed on the faded but very deliberate brand, right behind her neck. A tiny ‘M’ was carved deep into her. The symbol smeared into the skin with fire and cruelty. My stomach sank.
That symbol. Why did it look familiar?
“Would you quit moving around? I’m trying to look at that mark!” I snapped at the struggling man, still working to get the body back into place on the tarp.
I muttered under my breath a sweet song, ignoring the rants and raves of the delivery boy.
“Figures the plot would thicken. Big, scary masked idiots playing god? What does ‘M’ stand for? Mommy? Machine? Muymuy?”
I continued spouting off random M-words when the package man growled and whacked my shoulder.
I short-circuited from the non-consensual love tap until the guy said, “Monty’s?”
Monty, Monty, Monty. Oh! A strip club? That place was super known for ‘extracurriculars.’
My brain flickered as I pieced it together.
Timing. Placement. Precision. Brand symbol. Strangulation.
Nothing about this screamed amateur hour. Everything screamed nice, clean, and terrifyingly tidy. This meant Randall’s mom wasn’t just…dead.
She was a message.
Before I could focus on that, I sniffed the air like a whacked-out dog, knowing this was being cut short.
I stepped back, pacing and muttering jokes with my demons. “Oh yeah. This is a lovely family reunion. Bob Joe, set it up. Get the duffel. I gotta go. You know what I need now? Some coffee, a chainsaw…just kidding…mostly.”
The fire lit in my ass. The chase…it was back. My prowling kitty cat was back after licking his wounds. I needed to go. As much as I would love to help Randy in this moment, I couldn’t. Now, I had a lead, a symbol, a brand, a yellow brick fucking road.
“You’re going to hell,” they whispered.
“Not without you,” I said, cracking my knuckles. “I’ll meet you there later. Right now, I’ve got to figure out why mommy dearest died a whore.”