Faces of Evil

Kara groaned as a disembodied voice announced, “The storm has caused a three hour delay for the following connections: Liberty-Dayton-Houston.” The microphone sputtered before the bus station attendant droned on, “Vidor-Orange-Lake Charles-Lafayette-New Orleans. Travelers en-route to these destinations are asked to remain alert for changes or rescheduling.”

Kara stared morosely through the rain-smeared glass front of the bus depot, toward the run-down buildings across the street. The threatening darkness outside and the shabbiness of the neighborhood spilled over into the room. She skimmed the faces around her. All the crazies in town must have slipped in here to get out of the cold.

A giant in dirty overalls meandered aimlessly back and forth; a punk with spiked hair kept leering at her from the doorway. Three hours, Kara thought with despair, more likely, five. What was she supposed to do all that time?

She took another fleeting glance behind her. The punk continued to leer at her. What a loser! She avoided his gaze, determined not to give him any encouragement, and sank down on the bench beside an overweight woman, who was trying to control two half-wild little kids.

If Mom really cared for her, she would have sent her an airplane ticket, and she wouldn’t be faced with this insufferable delay. But even though money was tight since her parents had split up, Kara knew it wasn’t just that. Mom always envisioned mad bombers on every flight. She hadn’t even been too keen on Kara’s taking the bus back alone from her visit to her father in San Diego, but, after all, who hijacks busses? Good old Mom—seeing international terrorists and serial killers at every turn, their prize objective, the abduction of her precious little daughter, Kara. “You can’t be too careful these days, Kara,” Mom had cautioned. “And remember. I don’t want you talking to strangers.”

Kara felt that eyes from somewhere, or everywhere, were fastened on her, but she pretended not to notice. As a cheerleader at Bayside High, Kara was used to unwanted attention. She looked like her Mom, luckily, for everyone always said Mom could have been a model. Kara had inherited her thick, strawberry blonde hair, her trim figure, and her large, long-lashed blue eyes.

Danger definitely lurked here, Kara thought, casting another anxious look back through the crowd. “Can’t be too careful”—Mother, how right you are. She felt almost convinced that some evil presence had sorted her out as a potential victim.

The thought caused her to shrink down in the bench, hoping the effort would make her invisible, especially to that punk who was openly ogling her. She looked directly at him. His eyes were narrowed, his face, pitted and hollowed, topped with those dreadful green spikes. The sight of him sent a chill through her. As he edged closer, a nose ring caught the overhead light and glimmered.

“I hate being stuck here, don’t you?” Pretending to be part of their party, Kara attempted to strike up a conversation with the exasperated woman with the two unruly children.

The woman ignored her.

Kara shuffled in her backpack for the gossip tabloid she had bought for the long journey home. Mom never allowed her to buy Tattler, but Dad let her get just about anything she wanted. Her father’s move across country, being shuttled back and forth between them, had been a crushing disaster for her. She blamed Dad the most, because he was the one who had had the affair, and she never hesitated to make him pay—with new designer clothes and forbidden magazines that she really didn’t even like.

Kara flipped through pages. No one could read in such confusion. A goofy-looking man in a cowboy hat was yelling at the woman behind the ticket booth, condemning her for the delay. That was going to do a lot of good.

One of the brats started whining. The woman next to her rose and distractedly began to herd the kids off toward the restroom, leaving Kara totally alone.

“Stupid buses!” A girl, about Kara’s own age, slipped into the seat the family had vacated. She was dressed all in black, and Kara thought she looked very cool. She gave Kara a half-smile and a shrug that seemed to encompass the entire situation, the grimy bus station, the oppressive weight of boredom.

The girl tucked legs clad in black denim beneath her and gave a toss of her long, red hair. Her skin was so white it seemed almost transparent. Either the changing light or the hair that had fallen forward across her face caused her hazel eyes to reflect a strange, reddish tint. “I’m Mina,” she said. She leaned closer to whisper, “Don’t look now, but we’re being watched.”

Kara glanced back expecting to see the green-haired punk, but her eyes clashed with those of a handsome young man of about twenty-two. He had been leaning against the wall, but the moment their gaze locked, he quickly straightened up. He wore an off-white pullover sweater, tight denims, and a leather jacket that had seen better days. Despite his battered clothing, the intelligent alertness that marked his face made him stand out from the surrounding seediness.

“Who do you think he’s checking out?” the girl asked. “Me, or you?”

Despite all she could do, Kara’s gaze lingered on the attractive stranger. She thought for a moment he intended to approach them, but instead he angled away, vanishing into the depths of the station.

Kara turned back to the girl. “I’m Kara.”

“Kara…let me guess, the pretty, popular cheerleader.”

“A cheerleader, anyway,” Kara replied, smiling. “You know, your name has a familiar ring.”

“I hear that a lot. It’s from my mom’s favorite movie. Dracula.” Mina emitted a strange, fluttery laugh. “Guess I’m lucky I’m not a boy. She’d probably have named me Vlad.”

Mina…that was the name of the heroine who fell in love with the vampire count, wasn’t it? That was all Kara needed—this bus station from hell with vampires thrown in.

“You’re traveling alone, aren’t you?” Mina asked, and not waiting for Kara’s reply, said, “I am, too. You know what? We’d better stick close together. Ugly things have been happening to young girls in this city.”

A shiver of fear coursed through Kara. “Abducted, you mean?”

Mina shook her head ominously. “No, murdered. One, beaten to death in an alley; another found behind her house with her throat slashed. The third, just, poof, gone. Disappeared from this very depot several weeks ago. No one’s seen or heard from her since.”

Aghast, Kara asked, “Do they have any clues, any idea who….” Her voice trailed off, blending with the surrounding noises.

“Some maniac. He’s got three, so far. That’s all I know.” Mina stopped short and then asked offhandedly. “So, where are you going?”

---

The man had been watching the house ever since Selene had asked Wayne for a divorce. She stepped closer to the picture window in full view of him and met his bleak stare with what she could muster of courage. His tall form, clad in faded jeans and T-shirt lettered ‘Panthers’, hunched forward slightly in some grim acknowledgement—no other motion, no pretense of being about any ordinary business.

He stood between the tall oak and the steps, so close she could note the details of his face: the sparse but scruffy beard, the cutting crease between his eyes that gave him a sense of terrible purpose.

The image of the watcher, no doubt someone Wayne had met in one of his frequent trips to the Sixth Street bars, remained locked in her mind as she retreated from the window into the careful arrangement of green vines and plush white couches. Last night she had made the fact clear to Wayne that if he didn’t leave, she would. Tammy Dunn—Wayne always went out with the married ones—signaled the final ending of their miserable marriage. Usually Wayne was discreet concerning his lovers, but this one he had flaunted. Tammy, petite, freckled, red-headed; he preferred her—not enough, of course, to abandon the great old house Selene had inherited from her mother, not enough to quit the corporation, or relinquish the place in the Rimrock community Mother had so reluctantly bestowed upon him.

Wayne had great confidence in his charm, in his ability to hold Tammy and Selene, too. Probably that explained the man outside, some degenerate Wayne was paying to watch her so he could easily find her if she left.

The next time Selene checked, the watcher had either moved away, blending with the evening shadows, or he was gone. As she looked for him, Wayne, always in a rush, spun the car carelessly into the driveway. His black hair, forever tossed, as if he had been swimming or playing tennis, made him look like some high school quarterback. The sight of his solid body, his perfect features, no longer enchanted her. Instead, Selene steeled herself against his cunning, against his lies.

“Hi, Sel,” he said, almost humbly, as if her waiting for him was more than he had expected.

“Your clothes are packed,” she spoke slowly, controlling her anger with great effort. A smile remained in his eyes to mock her.

“It’s up to you to leave. The house is mine.”

“What ever happened to ours?” he asked, as if her definite statement had been made merely to amuse him. His first stop was always at the bar, lifting, examining bottles. He mixed a drink.

“I don’t want you here, not even for one more night.”

Wayne took a step toward her, fingers tight on the glass. “Whatever happened to a second chance?”

Selene shrank from the hand that reached out for her. Compliantly, he dropped his arm, attempting to hold her only with his eyes, trying to drown her, as he once had so easily done, in their soulful depth.

“Are you going to leave?”

He shrugged.

“At least be man enough to answer yes or no.”

“All right, no.”

The matter-of-fact way he spoke infuriated her. “I’ll hire someone to move your things to the cabin.
“Then I’ll hire someone to move them back. I am not going to leave this house, Sel. You might as well get that straight.” Wayne took a sip from his glass before adding: “I’ll stay in my half of the house, if that’s what you wish.” He stared at her a long time before he raised the glass again. “If you’re sure that’s your wish.”

What insufferable egotism. How could it even cross his mind that she would still want him? She controlled a desire to strike out at him, to beat the smile off his face with her fists or with one of the bottles he had placed on the bar.

I hate him. She had never allowed herself to think those words before, but now they screamed into consciousness as if breaking free. In reaction to their force, she backed away from him and hurried up the stairs to the room where she was now sleeping—her mother’s old room.

Selene entered feeling defeated. She avoided looking toward her mother’s portrait, but it appeared to her nonetheless—the erect head topped with dark curls, the blue eyes reflecting the steel that had kept together the Whitlock Corporation. Mother would not have fled from Wayne or from any opponent. Were they alike only in physical appearance?