Evangeline Read online

  Oh shit! Now the bitch wants to blow our head off!

  With firm resolve, Angeline marched through the rain to the passenger’s side door, threw it open and slid out Grandpa’s Model 21. Setting both barrels to fire, she parked herself on the edge of the seat with legs dangling from the cab and the gunstock braced between her knees.

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  Sister pressed the muzzle beneath her chin, curled a thumb around the trigger and pressed her eyes shut against the coming blast.

  Don’t do it! I ordered, determined to go down fighting.

  “Do it… do it… do it…” Angeline countered through gritted teeth, trying to shove my thoughts aside.

  Don’t do it… don’t do it… don’t do it, I persisted.

  “Shuttup!” Angeline screamed back at me.

  The girl was ready to try again when she heard the distant blast of an air horn carried on the westerly wind. I knew right away what it was; a Burlington, Northern and Santa Fe locomotive, no doubt crossing at Mineola just a few miles away.

  Mineola.

  That’s where Dan Quinn bought the farm. And if it was good enough for Caleb’s dad…

  Shit! It’s good enough for Angeline!

  No need for any trigger-pulling either. She’d just let the engineer do her dirty work. Hell, the girl didn’t even have to drive to Mineola. That big ol’ train would come barreling through the Hainesville grade soon enough, crossing County Line Road just a few hundred yards ahead.

  So, there would be no eleventh hour reprieve after all. Your faithful servant, Evangeline, was right back on death row.

  Chapter ten

  The sputtering Ford barely made it onto the tracks at Hainesville crossing. No sooner had Angeline turned the truck to face the oncoming locomotive, than the motor gasped once and shit-the-bed forever. Sister flung the keys out into the storm, rolled the window back up, and prepared to be flattened by the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe.

  She wouldn’t have long to wait. Already the train’s flickering lamp was growing brighter and a long, melancholy blast from its air horn warned it was approaching the grade. Well, there would soon be a slight bump on the rails-- a minor inconvenience for that big-ass locomotive, but a painful 250-ton kick in the teeth for Sister and me.

  As the horn blared once again, Angeline turned to the rearview, looked me firmly in the eyes, and spoke to her dear sister for the very last time.

  “You’re dead, bitch,” she promised with steely conviction.

  And I knew the girl meant it.

  CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

  The signal bells were sounding now and the crossing gates began to lower, sandwiching the Ford F-100 between them. That meant I had sixty seconds—a mere sweep of the second hand—to reflect on life before a quick and unpleasant death. And let me tell you, friends, those were sixty seconds I could have done without. Because if it’s true life flashes before our eyes in those fleeting moments before we bid this world adieu, then my one, last request of the man upstairs would most certainly be this:

  Please, God… hand me a fucking blindfold!

  “Angeline!”

  The voice sounded distant at first… as if calling from a dream. In the next moment, Caleb Quinn was at the driver’s side window. As angry as I was when that meddlesome fuck showed at Steel Creek, that’s how relieved I was to see him now.

  He jerked the door open and tried pulling Angeline out, but she fought back tenaciously, grabbing hold of the steering wheel and kicking at him with both feet. The unexpected blow caught Caleb in the chest and knocked him flat on his back. Before he could scramble up again, Sister had both doors locked.

  “Angel! Open the door!” Caleb shouted, tugging at the handle and banging on the glass. “Don’t do this!”

  But Angeline refused to look at him. In the growing light of the diesel’s lamp her face was slack, the eyes fixed vacantly on the locomotive bearing down. Another horn blast cut through the howling wind.

  Caleb frantically checked the truck bed and surrounding area for something to smash the window. But with no luck, and out of time, he sprinted back to the El Camino idling in the road, jumped behind the wheel and punched the gas. The tires shrieked and the car jumped, turning for the crossing and hurtling into the grade. It crashed through the gate and plowed broadside into the pickup-- a violent shove that knocked the Ford off the tracks and through the second gate just ahead of the coming train. That big orange diesel came roaring through with a continuous blast of its air horn, dragging a long string of grain cars, their wheels clanking and squealing as they rolled through Hainesville on their way to Des Moines.

  Caleb stumbled from his smashed El Camino, dug a tire jack from behind the passenger’s seat and rushed for the pickup. He found Angeline slumped over the steering wheel, dazed and bloody. With one swing of the iron, he shattered the passenger’s side window then unlocked the door and dragged her to safety.

  Like a babe in arms, Sister was carried through the rain and loaded into the passenger’s seat of the El Camino. But when Caleb climbed behind the wheel and turned the ignition, the engine wouldn’t turn over.

  “Shit,” he muttered in frustration. The boy swept the damp from his forehead and tried again. The starter ground away but the motor refused to kick. He gave up, dug a cell phone from his jacket and tried getting a signal. There was nothing. That was dead too.

  “C’mon, you piece of shit,” Caleb cursed under his breath.

  “You should have let me die,” Angeline told him in a lifeless voice. The girl was slumped against the passenger’s window, staring absently into the dark.

  “I’m getting you help,” he said.

  “Why would you?”

  “Because as messed up as you are, you’re the only sister I’ve got,” Caleb answered before slamming the cell phone against the dash in exasperation. “Fuck!”

  “I’m tired,” Angeline muttered, leaning her head back. “I have to sleep.”

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Caleb snapped, giving her shoulder a hard shake. “You stay right here.”

  He exited the El Camino, hurried around to the passenger’s side and threw open the door.

  “Come on,” he said, pulling Angeline into the heavy rain. “I’m taking you home.”

  The storm lumbering across Holt County had gathered intensity by the time they’d walked the half mile to the farm. Angry gashes of lightning lit up the fields, answered by the violent clash and boom of thunder. Propping Sister up with one arm around her waist, Caleb led her past the irrigation pond and down the long, muddy drive to the house.

  The front door was locked when they arrived. Caleb banged hard to be heard above the howling wind. As he was about to knock a third time, the door swung open and Stepfather appeared, dressed for a casual night of porn in khakis and a checked shirt.

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” said Caleb.

  Stumpy stepped back to allow them into the kitchen, unable to process what was happening. He’d assumed his stepdaughter was upstairs sick in bed, yet here she was being helped into a seat at the kitchen table with blood and makeup smearing her face. The girl wore that dazed, thousand yard stare soldiers speak of when they’ve overdosed on too much combat.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Stepfather demanded as he shut the door.

  Caleb reached into a pocket of his Carhartt jacket and pulled out a wet clump of black hair. It was Elvira’s beehive, looking like a drowned animal. “Your daughter tried to kill me and my brother up at Steel Creek Reservoir tonight,” he said, handing over the wig. “And then she tried killing herself at the Hainesville grade.”

  Stepfather turned the wig over in his hand, then looked at Angeline with a glazed expression. The dumb bastard still didn’t get it.

  “The Hacker, sir,” Caleb said, spelling it out for him. “I think your daughter is that serial killer everyone’s been looking for.”

  The man turned a dazed look from Caleb back to Angeline. “The L3
K?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It took some time, but as Stepfather’s flabbergasted brain finally caught up, a dark look swept his face. “Well, I’ll be goddamned,” he said to himself.

  If the boy was right, Nebraska’s most infamous murderess had just been dropped into his lap like manna from heaven. But with serendipity came serious concerns. Ted had history with this girl… the kind of history better left in a storm cellar with the hatch down.

  He swung his gaze back to Caleb. “You’re Abby Quinn’s boy.”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “Where’s your brother now?”

  “I left him and his girlfriend at a farmhouse up near the reservoir. I figured Angeline might be headed this way so--”

  “Go fetch ‘em,” Stumpy interrupted. “Take them to the Sheriff’s office in O’Neill and explain what happened.” His cold eyes returned to Angeline. “I’ll handle this.”

  “Sir, I don’t have a car. We walked in from the crossing and--”

  “Take mine,” Stumpy cut in. He grabbed keys from the counter and slapped them into Caleb’s hand, then herded the boy toward the front door.

  Caleb glanced back at Angeline. “What’s going to happen to her?”

  “That’s not your concern,” replied Stumpy, opening the door. “You did the right thing, son. The law will take it from here.”

  Caleb looked past Stepfather and said, “It’ll be alright, Angel. You’ll get the help you need now.” Angeline lifted her head wearily and held his gaze, looking lost and hopeless. “You’ll be fine,” he told her again, but his voice lacked conviction.

  “Time to go, Mr. Quinn,” said Stumpy, pushing him outside. He waited in the open door until Caleb drove off in the Eldorado, then pressed it shut and turned to Sister with an ominous smile. “Well, well, well. What do you know?”

  He approached the table slowly, his voice tinged with menace. “The L3K… living right under my goddamn nose.” Without warning he struck Angeline with a jarring backhand that knocked her from her chair and onto the floor.

  “Is it true?” he hissed at her, shaking the wig in her face. “You the one who’s been killing folks?”

  Angeline kept a hand pressed to her reddened cheek and answered in a tired voice, “It wasn’t mmm-me. There’s someone… inside m-m-my head.”

  Stepfather drove his boot into her ribs. “Don’t you bullshit me, goddammit!”

  “It’s true, I swear,” Angeline whimpered.

  The man dropped to his haunches beside her. “You’re a sick bitch, ain’tcha? Just like your mother.” He snapped a glance toward the ceiling, listened a moment, then snatched his deputy’s jacket from the coat rack and threw it on.

  “On your feet,” he barked at Sister as he stuffed the wig in his pocket. “I said on your feet.” He grabbed her brusquely by the arm and jerked her off the floor. “We’re gonna have ourselves a little private interrogation.”

  He shoved Angeline through the front door, grabbing his service revolver from its holster on the way out, then dragged her down from the porch and flung her out into the howling tempest.

  “Get your ass up!” He barked, jerking Sister back on her feet and hauling her off through the buffeting wind and rain. “Goddamn shame you tried to escape,” he said as he trudged through the mud. “And making a run for the storm cellar-- what the hell were you thinking? That put me in a hard spot. I mean, what choice did I have? I had to go down there. It was kill or be killed.”

  Lightning snapped overhead. Angeline stumbled and fell but Stumpy kept moving, dragging her along the ground. “That sound good to you, Butt Ugly?” he huffed. “Sure as hell works for me. The press’ll eat that shit up.”

  When he reached the storm cellar, the man lifted Angeline back on her feet and pushed his face close to hers, rain dripping from a cruel smile. “You didn’t think I was just gonna let you walk away, did you? Let ‘em put your ugly ass on trial and have some goddamn lawyer talkin’ shit about me… tellin’ all kinds of tales out of school? Because if that’s what you thought, you’re a lot dumber than you look.”

  He threw the heavy wooden door over on its hinges. “Yes, sir, they’ll pin a medal on me for this. Hell, I’ll be a goddamn national hero.”

  For a brief moment Angeline saw the windmill out in the field, its fins spinning on the violent wind, etched starkly against the horizon by a flash of lightning. Then Stepfather led her down into the storm cellar and the outside world vanished. The irony did not escape me that the place where I was born was the place I was going to die.

  At the bottom of the steps Stepfather hurled Angeline to the dirt floor then fumbled through darkness until he located the kerosene lantern, still hung on the peg where it was left the night I spit his dick. After lighting the wick, he went back up the stairs and pulled the storm hatch shut, instantly muting the roar outside.

  “Now, let’s you and me talk,” said the man as he came back down the steps.

  Cowering against an earthen wall in the dim light Angeline managed, “I’ve t-t-told--“

  “Not you,” Stumpy snapped with contempt. He drew the beehive wig from his coat and shook it. “I want her.”

  Angeline shook her head. “No, I w-won’t.”

  “You want me to believe you, don’t you? Well get her out here. Prove to me she’s real.”

  “No.” said Sister.

  He hurled the wig at her, then stood with his tongue rolling in the cheek pocket, weighing his options. In a moment he began unbuckling his belt. “This is your last chance, Butt Ugly. You gonna introduce me to your imaginary friend?”

  Angeline shook her head once again and Stumpy scowled. “Yeah, that’s what I figured.” He slipped the belt from his waist with the buckle dangling and told her, “Something tells me this is gonna hurt you more than it does me.” And with that he reared back and swung the belt like a bullwhip, striking Angeline with the buckle end. “Get her out here!”

  “No,” Angeline whimpered, pressing her hand against the growing welt on her shoulder. “I w-won’t let her.”

  “I said get her out here, goddammit!” he said, and swung again.

  Angeline rolled toward the wall and curled into a fetal position to take the blows. Let the man do as he pleased, she thought. She was beyond caring. Nothing mattered anymore. The time had come to let go. Just a little more pain and it would all be over.

  “Look at you,” Stumpy sneered. “If you’re the Hacker, I’m Jack the fuckin’ Ripper. Hell, you don’t have the balls to kill a goddamn housefly. But that other one…” He began unbuttoning his pants. “That other one… now she might be a different story.”

  He jerked the khakis to his knees followed by the underwear to reveal my old pal, Shorty. “Look at it,” he commanded. “I said look at it, goddamn you!”

  Angeline turned her head and lifted a teary-eyed gaze to see a gnarled, fleshy stump with a hole poked in the end.

  “Your little friend do this?”

  Sister answered weakly, “Yes.”

  “Does the bitch have a name?”

  “Evangeline.”

  “Evangeline, huh? I piss like a goddamn woman because of that cunt. Get her out here. We’ve got unfinished business.”

  “No,” Angeline whimpered softly, rolling toward the wall again.

  “The hell you say,” barked the man, and whipped her again with the buckle. “Come on out here, Evangeline. Come out, come out wherever you are.”

  Friends, despite the recent unpleasantness between us, I was ready and willing to help my poor sister in that time of crises. In fact, I was just dying to come out and give my old pal Ted a big “howdy do and fuck you too”. Only Angeline wouldn’t allow it. Now that her genie was back in the bottle, she wasn’t going to pull that cork no matter what happened. Sister had decided that if she had to go down, she was going down as Angeline Gottschalk. Period.

  “I’m done playing games with you,” Stumpy bellowed, beat faced and sucking wind. “Bring that cunt ou
t here! I’m gonna kill that bitch!”

  He resumed his savage assault, whipping Angeline over and over while thundering with each swing of the belt, “Bring her out! Bring her out! Bring her out! Bring her--”

  THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

  Ted stood up straight, heaving for breath. The sound had come from outside the storm cellar. Someone, or something, had banged hard on the shelter door.

  “Keep your mouth shut,” he hissed as he hurried to rethread his belt.

  When he was done he paused to listen, but heard nothing more than the muffled boom of thunder and the hard rain drumming against the hatch.

  “Stay quiet,” he warned Angeline under breath, then moved to the foot of the steps and paused there to check the chambers of his revolver. Satisfied that each had a loaded bullet, the deputy snapped the cylinder back in place and started up the stairs, gun gripped in both hands and muzzle trained on the door. He pressed a hand against the heavy hatch, walked it up a couple more steps and gave it a hard shove that flung it over on its hinges.

  A cacophony of sound came rushing in. There was a brilliant flash of lightning and a thunderclap overhead that shook the cellar walls. Both of the deputy’s hands were back on the pistol grip now. He moved up another step. A second blinding flash lit the cellar. Thunder boomed and a dark form leapt into view. The revolver discharged and the surprised deputy flung out his arms and lurched backwards, tumbling hard down the stairs and landing in a heap on the storm cellar floor.

  Dazed, he tried to lift himself from the dirt. But before he could, a wraith-like figure came shrieking down from above. My friends, can you believe it? It was Mother! The woman’s once lifeless countenance wore a crazed look. Her eyes were bugging out, the teeth were bared. And there was some kind of object clenched in her right hand.