The Bighead: Original Demon Text by Edward Lee

Author:Edward Lee [Lee, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Madness Heart Press
Published: 2022-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

(I)

Alexander and the cop carried Annie into the parlor and laid her out on the old crushed-velvet scroll couch. Charity and Jerrica briskly fanned her face with straw fans from the highboy. Alexander elevated her feet. “I better radio fer an ambulance,” Sergeant Mullins said.

“Wait, I—” Alexander leaned over, peering down and holding the elder woman’s hand. It felt cool, fragile. “She’s coming to.”

In time, Annie’s eyes opened fully. She looked wilted lying there, and stark when she realized what had happened. “My … gracious,” she whispered. She squeezed the priest’s hand. “I … just got so light-headed for a moment.”

“You fainted, Aunt Annie,” Charity said, she and Jerrica still waving the fans.

“Are you all right?” Jerrica asked. “The officer can call an ambulance.”

“Goodness no.” Her eyes fluttered, then she seemed to pinken with embarrassment. She sat up then, validating her recovery. “I’m fine, really. I’m so sorry to be such a burden.”

“It’s no trouble, ma’am,” Mullins offered. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“Oh, yes, of course. Thank you, thank you all. I feel much better.”

“Let’s get you to bed,” Jerrica suggested, whereupon she and Charity aided the woman to her feet. “You’ve had a busy day.”

“Too busy,” Charity added. “All that walking today in the hot sun, and this beastly humidity.” They both gently guided Annie toward out of the parlor and down the hall for her room.

Alexander walked outside with the cop.

“I really am sorry to cause all this ruckus, Father,” Mullins apologized. The heat lightning continued to whiplash when they got out to the car. “Guess there ain’t no subtle way to tell folks that a killer might be headin’ fer their town.”

“Hey, you’re just doing your job,” the priest said, and lit a cigarette. “We appreciate you taking the time to come out. Annie’ll be all right. I guess it was just a combination of the news of the murders and all this heat.” Alexander paused to reflect, dragging on his Lucky. “But it seems strange, doesn’t it—these murders, I mean? A laid-back, remote area like this, I’d think that there’d be almost no crime at all.”

“’Round here, shore,” Mullins agreed. “Originally, I was thinkin’ that maybe the murders are spillover, but they ain’t ’cos the M.O.’s so different, and they’re coming from the wrong direction.”

“Wrong direction? Spillover? What do you mean?”

Mullins shrugged, lit a cigarette himself. “You’d be surprised by the murder rate along the state line forty, fifty miles west’a here. BATF’s always findin’ bodies, hooch-related.”

Hooch? the priest wondered, but then he considered, BATF, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. “You mean moonshine, unlicensed whiskey.”

“Right, Father. Them shiner-runners off each other two a week, and a right dag bunch’a sick’n crazy bastards they all are. But most’a them all happen on the other side’a the line, an’ they ain’t nothin’ like these murders I came to tell y’all about. You’re right, murders ’round here, ’specially sexual murders, never happen.”

“And now all of a sudden you’ve got—what?—half a dozen?”

“A few more’n that, Father, if ya wanna know the truth.

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