Carrier Wave: A Day Of Knowing Tale (2 page)

His eyes were beyond bloodshot. Dried white
flakes ran down each cheek, like he’d been crying for days. He
bared his teeth and snapped at Helms over and again. He screamed
gibberish, a raging staccato bark that seemed to be trying to form
words, but never quite made it.

“RAAAH,” Greene gnashed his teeth and beat
his own face against the wall, “RAH GRA HEM NO IMHE HOA RAAAA!”

Price grabbed him by the hair and held his
head back so he wouldn’t bash his own skull in; Greene spasmed and
struggled harder. Together, Helms and Price managed to trip him up
and bring him down. She ziptied one ankle, then the other, and then
the two together. Price held a knee in his back and hauled on his
shoulders so she could hook the handcuffs and the ankle zips
together, leaving Greene hogtied. She knew it was dangerous to bind
a person like that for long, but Jesus – look at him. He was still
snapping at anything that came near his face, though his eyes never
left Jackson.

Shit. Jackson.

Helms jogged down the lane and ducked her
head under the pinsetter, where Jackson’s blood trail led.

“Jackson!” She called out. “Jackson, are you
still with me?”

A wet moan was her only response.

She called in an Officer Down and requested
an ambulance, then stood and surveyed the bowling alley.

“How do you get back there?” She yelled to
Price.

“Back where?” He said.

“Behind the pins. Jackson’s back there!”

“I’m coming,” Price said.

He turned to Hughes, who still had his
pistol out, pointing it now at the inert body on the floor.

“Hughes,” Price snapped his fingers. “Hey,
you with me?”

“Don’t go near it,” Hughes said, after
swallowing hard a few times.

“What? Listen, just stay here with Joe while
we go check on Jackson. He’s not going anywhere. Just make sure he
doesn’t chew his tongue off or something.”

“TIH NEH IH MO HOA IMHE MO HOA,” Greene
growled to himself.

Price turned away from Hughes and jogged
back down toward the benches. He rounded the ball return and knelt
by the body there.

“No don’t! Don’t get close to-“ Hughes
screamed.

Price extended a hand to check the man’s
pulse, then became a flailing blur.

Helms didn’t even see the guy move. He was
face down one second, then up on his feet the next, holding Price
in the air by his neck. Helms pulled her pistol reflexively.

“Hey!” She called, “hey, stop! Let him
go!”

It wasn’t exactly protocol, but it was all
she could think to say. She closed the distance fast, but the man
moved faster. His fingers sunk deep into Price’s throat, holding
him six inches above the floor while he sprinted toward Hughes, who
scrabbled backward up the stairs. Unlike Greene, this guy was dead
quiet. The only noise was his shoes squeaking on the polished wood
as he ran down Hughes, holding Price in front of him like a
shield.

Hughes had no shot, but he took it anyway,
firing wildly.

“No!” Helms yelled, too late.

When he had closed to within a few yards,
the man heaved Price aside. Price crumpled like a puppet whose
strings had been cut. Hughes fired again and again, each shot going
wide, and then the man was on him. He grabbed frantically at
Hughes’ arm, who twisted and yowled like a wet cat. When he found
purchase, the man put a foot on Hughes’ chest and yanked upward.
Hughes’ arm came off clean at the shoulder. Still the man made
absolutely no noise, not even a grunt of exertion. Hughes stared at
his own severed arm and keened like a tea kettle. The man tossed
the limb absently aside, then began grappling with Hughes’
remaining arm.

Helms put three bullets in his back, center
mass.

He didn’t even flinch.

The other arm came off as easy as the first,
and was tossed aside with equal disdain. He reached down and
grabbed Hughes’ left leg by the knee. Hughes kicked and bucked, but
to no avail. The man put his foot on Hughes’ crotch, and in dead
silence, wrenched his leg free from his body. Helms put two more
rounds in his back, then steadied herself.

Slow is smooth
, she thought,
smooth is fast.

She took an extra fraction of a second to
line it up, then pulled the trigger and put a round in the back of
the guy’s head. He fell to his knees, then to his side, still
clutching Hughes’ severed leg in both hands.

Helms holstered her pistol and ran to Price,
who was choking and gagging, pulling at his neck. She laid on top
of him, pinning his arms to his side, and spoke low and fast and
breathless.

“It’s okay it’s okay it’s over you’re okay
don’t fight it just give it a second just one second take a slow
breath real slow and easy you’re okay-“

Price stopped struggling and was still for a
long moment. Then at last came the rasping of a slow, thin breath.
He tapped Helms on the arm, and she rolled off him. He didn’t sit
up, just stared at the ceiling and focused on breathing evenly.
Helms went to check on Hughes next, but she could tell at a glance
that he was dead. Almost certainly from shock. His face was frozen
in a mad mask of disbelieving fear, blue-white and bloodless.

“Two officers down,” Helms yelled into her
handset. “God damn get everybody over here now!”

She rechecked Price, still breathing rough
but consistent, and headed back toward the pinsetter; toward
Jackson.

She laid flat on her belly, as if to crawl
in after him. But she froze.

Fear, shaky and electric, wrapped around the
base of her spine and pinned her in place.

“Jackson,” she called out instead, “hang in
there, help is coming.”

She went back to Price, and sat at his side,
stroking his forehead until the EMTs arrived.

***

“I told you half a dozen times already,”
Danny Greene whined to Helms, “we was just minding our own
business, throwing a few rounds. When this little guy came up and
held out a tape recorder – one of those dealies that fits in your
hand. He hit play and it made some beep boop kinda sounds, then he
just turned and walked away before we could even say nothin’. Me
and Joe and Marky bowled a few more rounds, then I looked back and
Joe was crying or something. So I made fun of him some -- like you
do -- and he just flipped out and started beating on me. Well I
took right the hell off, I don’t mind telling you, and that was all
I saw. I went back to Becky’s trailer and I got real drunk there
until I fell asleep on the foldout. You can ask her, I was
there!”

Helms rubbed her eyes with her pointer
finger and thumb. She was so tired that her vision would go blurry
every few minutes until she paused to massage life back into them.
She took another sip of Styrofoam flavored coffee from the absurdly
tiny cup, and pretended to recheck her notes. There was no need.
Danny Greene had told the same story each time he was questioned,
and the other witnesses backed him up as best they could. Nobody
saw the guy with the tape recorder, but they all saw Joe go nuts on
Danny for no real reason. Then he turned on the folks in the next
lane, then the manager, until everybody bolted, leaving him and
Mark Kimmel alone in the alley. Witnesses said that when Joe
started attacking folks, Mark just laid down on the floor and went
still. Stayed like that the whole time.

Jackson had so many stitches in his face he
looked like a scarecrow, but he managed to keep the eye. His
statement said he and Hughes arrived on scene to find a prone Mark
Kimmel, while Joe Greene roamed aimlessly up and down the lanes,
muttering to himself. Hughes split off to check on Kimmel, while
Jackson went to confront Greene. Hughes got there first, and the
second he knelt down by the body, Kimmel sprung to life and hurled
him all the way up over the railing into the shoe rental. Kimmel
looked around, saw Jackson, seemed to think for a second, then just
laid back down and went still. Jackson called out then, and the
noise got Greene’s attention. He laid into Jackson like a madman,
and that’s when Helms and Price came on scene.

All the stories matched up. And none of them
made sense.

Joe had some assaults on his record, but
nothing this serious, and never with his own brother. They were
tight as two sticks in a popsicle – if anything, people insulting
his brother was the excuse Joe used to fight most often. Mark
Kimmel had nothing on his record at all. He hung out with assholes,
but if that was a crime half this town was going to jail.

So they, what? Went crazy because of some
beeps on a tape recorder?

Even assuming that was true, what Kimmel did
was impossible. Not ‘crazy on drugs’ improbable –
literally
impossible
. He lifted Price -- who was six foot and a buck
eighty himself -- like a sack of potatoes, and still ran at full
speed. Then he pulled off Hughes’ limbs without so much as breaking
a sweat. Drugs could kill your pain center, make you take a lot
more damage -- that would explain why Kimmel didn’t go down when
Helms emptied into him, but no drug made you superhuman.

And if it
was
the tape recorder that
caused it, why did Greene seem to have normal strength and went
around attacking strangers, while Kimmel went all Superman but just
laid on the floor until somebody got close?

Helms circled and underlined various words
in Danny’s statement, basically at random. How the hell do you type
up something like this without sounding like a maniac yourself?

“You hold tight, Danny,” She said, and
scooted her chair back. It wailed metal on metal. “We’ll get you
out of here, soon.”

“You fuckin’ better!” Danny said, then
immediately regretted it. “Sorry, it’s just… I been in here for
hours and I wanna go see Joe. They won’t even tell me how he’s
doing.”

He waited to see if Helms would enlighten
him, but she just smiled a little when she stepped out the door.
Price was waiting with a replacement Styrofoam coffee. He handed it
to her and sipped from his own, wincing as it went down.

“How’s the neck?” She asked.

“Dandy,” he croaked, his voice like wet
gravel.

Price was speaking as little as possible on
his first day back. He wasn’t even supposed to be here yet, but
he’d checked himself out of the hospital after only 36 hours. The
captain figured it would be better for his recovery to let him
stick around and do deskwork, rather than hollering and shouting
about forced leave. Helms had been pulled from the field after the
shooting while the investigation went through, but she knew that
wouldn’t take long. Besides, she could use the time away.

She knew beat cops were supposed to fight
against every second of desk-time, but Helms was actually quietly
relieved. She’d never so much as fired her service revolver in the
line of duty before taking down Kimmel two days ago. Her usual
targets were tin cans and paper outlines. She couldn’t say she was
exactly losing sleep over it -- but that was what worried her.
Helms told herself it was because Kimmel clearly wasn’t human
anymore – not with that strength, not with that speed – and she’d
seen what he did to Hughes. Knew what was on the line when she
pulled that trigger. But there was still a nagging little part of
her asking “what if you’re just a killer? What if that’s why it
doesn’t bother you – because you’re a psychopath?”

Their station was small; the therapist had
to come all the way from Des Moines, and wouldn’t be here until
tomorrow. Helms would put up a fight for show – “guess I gotta go
get my head shrunk by some witch doctor” she’d snark – but once
that door was closed, she was looking forward to talking to
someone. She wasn’t worried about the investigation -- you could go
take a look at Hughes’ mangled body if you had any questions about
whether or not it was a good shooting. His single remaining leg and
three ragged stumps would do all her testifying. But she could sure
use somebody with a big rubber stamp that would deem her ‘sane’
right about now. And that wasn’t happening anytime soon. So that
left her stuck at the station for at least a week when she should
be...

Doing what, exactly? What was her lead here,
the crazy music guy?

Price noticed her staring at the wall,
delicately sipping hot black water, and grunted.

“What? Sorry, just thinking…”

He grunted again, with an inquisitive tone
this time.

“About where we go from here, with the
case.”

Price groaned.

“Look, just because we’re both riding desks
doesn’t mean the work stops. If all we have is the guy with the
tape recorder, then sure, I guess that’s where we start. If nothing
else he’s a material witness at two crimes, one assault and one
murder…”

A doubtful grunt.

“Well, okay, I’m a
ssuming
that it’s
the same guy. But this is a small town – you really think there are
two tape recorder pyschos out there?”

An acquiescing groan.

“Right then. I’ve got some paper time in
front of me anyway. I’m going to look into noise disturbances, see
if there’s anything there. You want to look into assaults and pull
witness reports, see if somebody mentioned a guy with a boombox or
a tape recorder or something?”