True Creature Read online

  Steve Zell

  TRUE CREATURE

  TRUE CREATURE

  Steve Zell

  Edited by Leigh Anne Beresford

  Cover design and artwork, True Creature © 2019 by Steven J. Pitzel

  True Creature, Copyright © 2019 by Steve Zell. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, visit www.talesfromzell.com

  This book is a work of fiction, set in a time several decades ago; it is not intended to be an accurate description of actual events or locales. Spider-Man and Peter Parker are creations of Marvel Comics. All characters depicted (with the exception of those associated with The Wallace and Ladmo Show) are fictitious, and any resemblance to other real persons living or dead is coincidental.

  Steve Zell

  Please visit my website: www.talesfromzell.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing March 2019

  Tales From Zell, Inc.TM

  Portland, Oregon

  ISBN: 978-0-9847468-8-0

  LCCN: 2019900962

  This book is dedicated to the wonderful cast and crew, living and not, of The Wallace and Ladmo Show. No matter how hot or scary life was – you always made us laugh.

  Thank you, Leigh Anne for once again bringing order to my random thoughts; to my daughter, Vicki, for your help in deciding which way to go on the publishing side; and special thanks to my wife, Nina, for granting me all the time I’ve spent inside this book.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11

  The Lily Murders --------------------------------------------------------------- 14

  Chapter 2 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23

  Chapter 3 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 35

  Chapter 4 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 39

  Chapter 5 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 42

  Chapter 6 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 53

  Chapter 7 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 71

  Chapter 8 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95

  Chapter 9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 102

  Chapter 10 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 107

  Chapter 11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 123

  Chapter 12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 130

  Chapter 13 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 155

  Chapter 14 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 159

  Chapter 15 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 165

  Chapter 16 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 175

  Chapter 17 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 181

  Chapter 18 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 186

  About the Author: ---------------------------------------------------------------- 234

  Other Titles by Steve Zell ------------------------------------------------------- 235

  Foreword

  True Creature takes place in a setting that may not be familiar to most even though Phoenix, Arizona is and has always been a winter destination for many folks from the North and Midwest.

  For those of us raised in Phoenix during the 1950s through ‘70s, the fact we lived in the middle of a mortally-hostile desert environment where summer days could reach 121 degrees and the only consistent water source was man-made, wasn’t any more frightening than going to school, or for those of us who attended Catholic schools – the nuns. We had no idea we were part of an experiment, or of the political machinations required to bring water and life to the city.

  We were kids.

  Sure, it was hot as Hell – but we had Wallace and Ladmo, Legend City and Big Surf, movie houses, and quite a few public and private swimming pools to keep our skin temperature down and our moods high. Parents who dared to have grass lawns used an irrigation system not far removed from the one the Hohokam left us. Experiment that we were, we were the testing ground for every fast-food franchise and every new bit of marketing there was – so there was plenty of neat stuff to eat and play with. And heck...if you teed off at 5AM in the summer – you could golf year-round. As hot as it was for us kids...Phoenix back then had its own sort of cool.

  But underneath all of that...there was always something else.

  Chapter 1

  Paradise

  Once you come to believe you have nothing more to lose, you’ll lose one more thing.

  The spring in your step. A few degrees of motion in your fingers, your knees, a measure of clarity in your vision. The loss is rarely sudden, more often something you become aware of gradually.

  And, little by little, you’ll begin to realize that at one time, youth firmly in hand, you lived in paradise.

  But you had no idea you'd been there until you looked back.

  And now you wonder if others who began this journey with you knew just where you were. You realize that many must have. They knew, and they took full advantage of it.

  But for you paradise wasn't to be found in the “here and now.” It was only to be enjoyed once you'd circumvented all the pretty traps and snares of the present.

  Back then you dreamed of, and lived for, the future.

  Paradise.

  But every day you lost a little more.

  And finally, weary of walking toward a future that seemed ever more uncertain; you decided you had walked long enough, far enough.

  And only when you were tired and old did the truth become clear…that this very time and this very place…

  This is what you sacrificed paradise for…

  - Dark Warrior

  Arizona

  May 2, 1968

  A breath! Air whistled down his sandpaper throat; another rattling and painful breath. Awake. His eyes were dry, his sight smoky, motes like large winged bats swirled across the narrow tunnel of his vision. Cold. His powder blue blanket, the one with the cowboy hats and lassos was gone.

  Where was his bookshelf filled with picture books? Where was his fielder’s mitt?

  He saw that shelf now at the far wall of the room. But who moved it?

  Where were the curtains printed with drawings of other kids playing – figures that often scared him at night...because sometimes those kids seem to move...to really play.

  The windows on the south side of his room were gone; only one thin window high up that far wall and fogged white.

  This isn’t my room. It’s not my bed!

  “Ma-” A cry for his mom couldn't escape his parched, cracked lips. His tongue was a leathery, useless thing in his mouth.

  The hand he raised was fragile, the fingers long and white with knobby knuckles, barely more than bones with skin; not my hand.

  This isn't me.

  A brittle scream that couldn't possibly have come from him and then...darkness.

  He dreamed.

  No. He remembered…

  June 2, 1953
r />   Choking dust. Deep sand sucked at his sneakers, slowed him down, weakened him. But he kept pumping his arms, kept running. The full moon led him up and away from the others, guided him past the cactus and the sharp, unstable rocks. But it couldn't hide him because the moon led them too.

  They'd seen him, and he had no idea where he was running to but the lake. And then what? What would he do? Swim away from them?

  He had never run this hard. He was hungry and cold – with nothing inside to fuel him but terror.

  The boy's legs pistoned and pumped and finally, failed him. He wasn't fast enough; he wasn't strong enough to escape. He dropped to the sand.

  The stench of decay, something dead nearby – a bird, a jack-rabbit…

  “This way!”

  Tommy! His friend stood atop a small mountain of boulders well-guarded by Cholla, what they called “jumping cactus” - the worst cactus of all – because Cholla needles were so long, so sharp, they were in your skin before you even knew you'd touched them.

  “Through here! This way!”

  Tommy waved his arm toward the awful stand of Cholla.

  Joey stood, wiping the sandy snot from his face. He couldn't make it through that cactus. No way. But he could hear the pounding footfalls behind him. He had to go somewhere! In the blink of the eye, Tommy was gone.

  Why did he come here, what did he expect to see?

  Nothing like what he’d seen tonight, nothing like this!

  He heard his brother shout, “Joey, stop!”

  His brother would be angrier than anyone if he caught him.

  Tears poured down Joey’s cheeks. He sucked his lips into his teeth. And ran for his life.

  Pain slammed his ribs. His fevered eyes saw only stars, and then...Chuck Webb, nearly twice Joey’s age and massive - the fetid odor of sweat and something the boy was far too young to know.

  “You didn’t see nothin’! You hear me? You didn't see nothin'!”

  The Lily Murders

  May, 1968

  Phoenix, Arizona

  "Charlie?"

  Melissa Webb swirled the plastic sword within her frosted glass and stabbed another salty olive, plucking it from the bottom. The martini was sour and not nearly dirty enough. Damn it. Vermouth should only touch the glass, be swirled for a bit and dumped out. It was the olive juice, the salt she savored.

  "Charlie…"

  Charlie knew better. What was he thinking?

  She slipped from her sandals, relishing the feel of cool marble beneath her feet as she crossed the kitchen floor to the patio.

  Beyond the sliding door, rectangles of aqua light from the pool danced along the terrazzo, painted the wrought-iron benches, the meticulously clipped lawn, and high stone wall that protected their yard and their pool.

  And there was Charlie himself. King of his castle. Lord of his pool, his rotund form distorted by the sheets of water sluicing down the faux rocks above him, those beefy white feet dangling in the churning water. His martini rested safely just beyond the flow.

  Melissa downed the last of her far-too-sour martini, slipped the robe from her shoulders and dove naked into the warm pool. Her breath slipped away in silver bubbles as she glided effortlessly across its length.

  Charlie had been a varsity fullback when they'd met. So powerful, so handsome.

  That was fifteen years ago. And here he was now…

  Things had changed…Charlie had definitely changed. He'd grown fat and bald. To be fair, neither of them had lived up to their physical expectations she supposed. She'd miscarried the child who had tied them inextricably together back then and picked up thirty pounds of sadness herself from the experience…

  But she loved big Chuck today the same way she always had.

  Through the churning surface, through the bubbles, there were those big feet, the sunrise tattoo on his ankle glowed a garish purple in the aquamarine pool lights.

  She clasped his tree trunk ankles in her hands and began to pull herself up to him.

  His feet slipped from the ledge. Charlie's body toppled headlong into the pool.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  Ross Tennet worked so hard.

  Jo Anne had cleaned the Burl & Tennet Agency office nightly for ten years, she'd long ago stopped counting the times she'd found Mister Tennet asleep at his desk.

  She knew he had children. She knew he'd been divorced – at least twice. Outside of that, she knew he lived only for the agency.

  He was a quiet man, but a good man as far as Jo Anne knew. He smiled often.

  She clicked off the vacuum before she made her way down the hall past the stone waterfall that trickled softly, beside his office. There was no need to wake him. The man was meticulous. Anything she found there she could handle just fine with a dust cloth and pan.

  The clock near the bookshelf read 8:13 PM.

  At 8:25 PM Jo Anne had swept, dusted, and tidied everything but Mister Tennet’s desk. It wasn’t until she reached for his empty water glass that she realized Mister Tennet wasn't breathing.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  Los Angeles, California

  “What the fuck?”

  Sara Poole raised her gloved hands. The rotund, naked form on the examination table before her settled slowly onto his back.

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” Ben glanced up from his clipboard.

  “This wasn't an overdose…” she said. “I’m thinking murder.”

  Ben shook his head, and read the report back to her again. "The deceased, Richard Bilken, was found in bed by his roommate with a needle in his arm. He’s a known heroin addict.” He added, “with an arrest and conviction record longer than your girlfriend's clit."

  Sara, a good four inches taller than Ben, her body molded by years of competitive diving and martial arts, smiled benignly at this attempt at humor from the squirrel-like twerp, as she usually did. In the macabre world of forensic pathology, you found humor where you could.

  “I'm thinking he was drowned and placed.”

  Ben tilted his chin toward the bags of clothing their customer had come in with, freshly bagged on the counter awaiting tags.

  “His PJ’s are dry.”

  “Come on. Give me a hand here.”

  Checking a customer's back for signs of trauma was a necessary part of the Medical Examiner’s job, the “heavy lifting” part. Sara was strong enough, and with her natural leverage, a good steady pull of the arm was usually enough to roll a corpse, but Bilken was a large man. A large, dead weight.

  “Take his shoulder. One. Two...three.”

  With a gurgle and a moan, the dead man rolled toward her, a gory mix of water and blood sputtered from his open mouth and nostrils into the gutters...and just kept coming. Two liters or more by the time he was done.

  “Again...I'm thinking murder. By drowning.”

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  “I seen her stuffin,' Alice. Candy - she’s hidin' it on you, sweetie.”

  “I know that, Crystal. Where does she hide it?”

  “Come on, sweetie...just a taste, okay?”

  “Shit, Crystal...”

  “I'm not a snitch, baby...you know I'm not like this -”

  “Where, Crystal? Where does she put it?”

  “I got two babies, Alice. I'm just...you know, I'm just messed up now, just now, you know?”

  “I know...I know how that is, honey.”

  Out on the floor where, at this moment, Candy was making sweet love to the brass pole under the adoring gaze of three fans, actual music played. In here, Alice's “nest,” with its carpeted door and walls, there was only thumping bass, deep rhythm, a dark pulse. In here, all melody was lost and the only light was a watery purple glow from the aquariums.

  The snow-streaked face in the mirror resting below him, the one with the rolled fifty dollar bill up its nose, mascara highlighting his long black lashes, that face didn't belong to him, it was an homage to his favorite act, Alice Cooper; a caricature of a caricature.

  His r
eal name was Cecil. That had become “Cee-Cee” early on. Now it was Alice.

  Nothing was his. Not even Candy. Not even the money she made off his good nature.

  He ran the paper along the mirror resting on Crystal's backside, skimming the sweet powder, sucking its cold-burning life into his nose until a drop of red blood spattered the remaining dust.

  Oh, feel that cold, medicinal, burn...

  His lips curled, for a moment he could feel his gums pull back with them, felt his teeth grow long and sharp.

  Oh, if only he could be that monster he wanted to be.

  “Just a taste, okay. That's all I need, okay, sweetie? That's all.”

  A ghost of a face, a flickering purple, a face that might have been that of a sweet child in the light of a summer not long ago, that face looked back at him with equal parts hope and terror.

  He took two bottles from the shabby desk behind them. One, Peppermint Schnapps, the other, Tabasco.

  “I'll give you a taste, honey.”

  He dumped a white pile onto the mirror, swirled in schnapps, Tabasco, and his own blood...

  Her eyes grew wide.

  “Where does she hide it?”

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  The rat-a-tat machine-gun fire of southern California rain pounded against the metal door. Alice was spent, burning, freezing...and flying.

  It had been a fabulous night after all.