Friday Fiction: Devils Walk Through Galveston, Chapter 4

This is the fifth installment of Devils Walk Through Galveston, my first novel.  The prologue, Chapter 1 (which introduced the crime and criminal), Chapter 2 (which introduced the police officers)  and Chapter 3 (the seduction of the initial victim) were posted earlier.  In this chapter, we follow the fleeing killer.  

I hope you enjoy it. Please read it and share.  Go to Amazon and get the book for the rest.

4.  John and Judas on the rails, mid-morning

They walked among the iron snakes in the mid-morning mist.  Walked among the vipers resting between the ties.  Containers and coal and cotton bales.  Looking for an empty boxcar.  Watching for Railroad Bulls.  Not talking about this morning.  Walking quick to put her house behind them.  Explosions of metal as the couplings linked.  Explosions of air as the diesels roared.  They find a boxcar half filled with wooden crates of bolts slowly starting its roll south.  Climbed in and settled with their backs to the wall, out of the way of the door slat, lock-blade knife resting on the floor between them.

John first, “What happened last night?”

Judas then, “You mean why you picked up that girl in a bar with other folks watching?”

“No, after.”

“You were there.  What’d you do?  You woke up with her.”

 “Don’t fuck with me, Judas.   You were there.”

“How do you know?  You see me last night?”

“Don’t fuck with me.”

“I’m not fucking with you.  I’m about to tell you you fucked up.  Cause you fucked up.  You picked up a divorced girl at a bar in her home town that has all of forty thousand people, if you count out into the woods a ways.  You notice she didn’t have to pay for her drink?  You notice the bartender didn’t talk to her and she didn’t care?  You notice the three other girls looking over at her when you danced with her and they sat? You notice any of that, because they did.  Man no one knows walks into a bar, picks up a local girl, who doesn’t show up to work the next morning.  How long you think it’s going to take for someone to find her?  You think she has a friend at work who’ll notice she’s gone?  Think her boss won’t call to see where she is?  Think no one will come over and knock on the door after calling her phone?  Think no one else has a key?  Think it’ll take past noon?  I don’t.  Man walks into a bar and leaves with a local girl in her car.  He has no car.  Has to get out of town one of four ways: afoot through 100 miles of totally flat cotton patch, in a stolen car, which they will check for, on a bus, which they will check for, or on the rails.  How many rail lines leave this town?  Enough.  You’re lucky there.  But, I guarantee that there will be an APB to points in each direction by the end of the day at each rail stop.  So, let’s not get off in Greenwood or any other small town or wait to get to the big yards where there will be plenty of bulls looking for us.” 

John looking down at the wood slats between his feet.  Quietly said, “Let me settle my mind.  Let me think this through.  “

The click-clack of the wheels over the ties settled John. The knife at his side let him rest. 

§§

John thought of the girl in the red negligee.  He’d forgotten her name.  Always forgot their names and faces.   He walked his way back through the night.  He remembered flirtation on the way to her car.  He didn’t remember what he said.  He remembered his hand resting gently on her ass as she unlocked the passenger door and paused waiting for him to push gently into her and let his chest rest on her back, his hips on her ass.  She reached up and back and rubbed his neck for a second, then turned and scooted to her side of the car and he got in.  He rested his left hand on her thigh as she drove slowly through town.  He was inching it up as she turned into the driveway only a couple blocks from the high school, less than a mile from the club.  She pulled deep into the driveway she shared with the front of the house and the next door neighbor, parked under the little piece of eave.  Got out to the crunch of gravel on dirt and a key in the side door.  Got out to bats circling above the dead tree in the back yard.  Cats or rats or possum rustling in the bamboo stand next to the chain link fence.

He followed her in silently.  She had to look back to see he was coming.  She didn’t hear the click of the kitchen door shutting.  He didn’t let her get the wine out of the cabinet.  Reached a hand up the back of her thigh as she got on her toes.  She braced her hands on the counter.  Let out a soft moan.  He inched his hand up her jeans, began to rub between her legs and ran his other hand to the front to undo the top button.  Her: “Oh, John.  God, you make me wet.”

Judas, now, “You told her your fucking name?”

“What does it matter?  Who could she tell?”

“You tell me.  When did you say it?  While you were dancing?  You sure she didn’t text someone on the way to the car?”

“She didn’t.” 

“How do you know she didn’t text someone or email a friend on the way to the bathroom?”

“I don’t think she went to the bathroom.”

“Think, John.  I can’t believe you told her your name.  Did you give her the whole thing or just the first?”

“I’m thinking.  Let me relax a minute.”

John remembered her saying, “Let’s lay down.”  She’d turned halfway, and reached back to grab his belt.  Pulled him out of the little kitchen, around through the edge of the living room and into the bedroom.  Kept the light off.  The flood light from next door lit the room.

Judas:  “I forgot about the neighbor’s flood light.  Did you see anyone stir next door as the car pulled in?”

John:  “I didn’t see anything.”

“Because you didn’t look?  Or because there was no one moving?”

“No one moving.  And I had my cap pulled low.”

“She’d stood at the edge of the bed, facing away, and pulled that red negligee over her head.  Exposing milky white skin and narrow waist.  Just a touch of a roll above her waist band.  All the better for it.  Skin like silk as John reached a hand up and traced the outline of her spine with his fingertips.  Stopped at her bra and undid the clasp in one motion with one hand.  He moved the other around her neck and put his index finger to her lips.  She sucked lightly and bit down.  John took off his shirt and felt the breeze through the screen.  Unbuttoned her jeans standing behind and slipped them down.  She leaned over the bed and let her bra fall onto the cover.  Let her breasts hang as John slid her panties down around her ankles.  She didn’t raise her feet.  John kneeled and lifted her feet one at a time.  Leaned in and she began to moan again.  Reached a hand around and up to grasp her breast above her heart.

§§

John startled awake with spiders on his skin, slapping his arms and face and neck.  Got up too quick and stumbled into one of the crates.  Flailing, ripping his shirt off to swipe at the spiders on his back.  Judas grabbed him and pushed him into the box car wall.  Brushed his skin.  Shushed him gently.  Cupped John’s neck in his hand, saying softly, “I got the spiders off.  They’re gone.  Here, take a pull on this flask.  Settle your nerves, man. settle  We’ve got a long ride to Galveston.”