Mein Name Ist Klaus

Art by Jason Kemp, Tenkara Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Horror Short Story

Prologue

This is a story of fiction. However, the WWII bayonet in the story was named for German Nazi, Klaus Barbie, who was known as “The Butcher of Lyon” for his atrocities. He earned a reputation of being a sadistic killer as the head of the Fourth Section of the Gestapo. Klaus Barbie was known to have tortured and murdered 26,000 people. He once told an interviewer, “What is there to regret? I am a convinced Nazi. If I had to be born a thousand times, I would be a thousand times what I have been.”

Diezel Gonzalez sat in his backyard beneath the balmy twilight haze of a tangerine and violet California sky. He always liked to sharpen his WWII German K98 combat bayonet at sunset. He usually came home from work right before sundown. Diezel was an electricity lineman for the local power company. His routine once he got home was to get a beer, sit outside with his bayonet, enjoy the dissonant sounds of barrio life, and watch the sun dip low for the night.

The steady rhythm of the blade running down the whetstone had created callouses on his right hand which he loved to admire as if they were jewels on his fingers. Uncle Cuko gave it to him years ago as a birthday gift when he was just a boy. Diezel liked the feel of the cold steel. It excited him and made him feel powerful. An electric charge surged through his body as he felt the unforgiving edge of the blade. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was his. He wondered if other previous owners had enjoyed killing, cutting, and gutting things as much as he did.

The instant he laid eyes on the bayonet he began calling it “Klaus.” He found the name appropriate. It had immediately come into his mind as he held it for the first time. Even now, Diezel would practically ooze with cum in his excitement just thinking about Klaus. When he held it in his large hands, the feeling was like a sexual release, and when he would check inside his pants he would find he actually did and he would wallow in the warm wetness of his love.

The name, Diezel, was the self-appointed name Delio had given himself the day after he was given Klaus. Eventually, everyone would not even remember his real name. After the gift of Klaus he would beat, punch, or attempt to strangle anyone in school who called him, “Delio.”

It was a bit trickier for his parents and sister, but they eventually got used to the name in order to avoid his outbursts and rages which seemed to lately possess him in his constant demands for them to refute his birth name. By the time Diezel entered high school his real name had faded out of everyone’s mind. Delio was the name of his great-grandfather on his mother’s side. This great-grandfather was noted to be a good, honest and honorable man. The name “Diezel” was more fitting for the sharp, glaring, angry and cruel demeanor and personality he had easily adopted. The wrath he dished out to his parents and sister back then when they all insisted on continuing to call him by his birth name just wasn’t worth the arguments and rage. So “Diezel” he became and the name, “Delio” was eventually forgotten.

He was 13 years old, his birthday, and it was the day Uncle Cuko brought Diezel and Klaus together at the gun and weapons expo. It was a sunny Saturday morning and Diezel had been sitting on the front steps of the house when Uncle Cuko drove up in his old and primered 1958 Chevy pickup.

He rolled down the passenger window and yelled out in his gravelly voice,

“Get in mijo. Your dad said I could take you to the gun show in San Pedro. I got some stuff to sell there to a guy and you can clean them on the drive over. Andale!”

Diezel told him to wait, he ran inside and told his mom and she packed them both some bean and cheese burritos for the drive. Diezel always remembered the burritos because on the way to San Pedro Uncle Cuko went to the drive thru window of the A&W and bought a gallon of ice cold root beer. They passed the root beer between them until it was half full. Diezel thought, Damn! Good root beer! The bean and cheese burritos tasted delicious accompanied by his frothy gulps. It was probably one of his best childhood memories.

At the gun show Diezel had been aimlessly wandering the aisles. The discordant buzz and noise of voices and activity was enjoyable as he listened to the bartering and arguments of the old veterans, bearded collectors, and shoppers trying to make a deal. At one table he played with a slingshot and wished he could try out the steel pellets which came in a bag and were sold together with the sling. The slingshot was ten dollars and he stood there debating whether to purchase it as he fingered some dollars in his pocket.

Suddenly, at the next table, an old and tarnished scabbard caught the corner of his eye. Oblivious to the surrounding noise and other items on the table — the slingshot forgotten for now — he slowly walked towards the blade. The din of noise was gone as he focused on a distant voice he was certain was calling to him. He looked around thinking Uncle Cuko was calling him but saw him several tables away having a deep conversation with a man on the other side of a table displaying scopes and ammo. He paused before the weapon and lightly touched the hard and weathered leather and metal scabbard with his index finger. He looked to his left then his right and realized no one paid any attention to him so he picked up the bayonet and removed the blade from the scabbard. It looked sharp. He stood there entranced and gently, lightly, ran his finger down the edge of the blade imagining scarlet droplets oozing from his touch. Uncle Cuko walked up to him at that exact moment and said,

“It probably belonged to some fucking Nazi.”

“Probably,” was all Diezel mumbled, never taking his eyes off the blade.

A vibration surged like an electric current as he held the weapon in his hands. It traveled through his arm down to the pit of his stomach and he realized the connectivity he felt for this inanimate object meant something, He just knew the weapon belonged to him, wanted him.

Uncle Cuko purchased it right there on the spot and then he handed it to Diezel. The uncle said,

“Happy Birthday, cabrón. Don’t hurt yourself. I was thirteen years old when I got my first knife.”

Thus, began the love affair between boy and blade.

Uncle Cuko died a few months after Diezel’s thirteenth birthday. Diezel loved his Uncle Cuko. The story of his death had appeared in the local newspaper. Unfortunately, Uncle Cuko was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had gone to the corner liquor store to buy a pack of Marlboro’s when the store was robbed and he tried to play hero. Poor Uncle Cuko was shot in the chest and died as the ambulance rushed him to the hospital. When they were laying his uncle in his final resting place Diezel thought, “Thanks for Klaus, Uncle Cuko, for bringing us together.”

Diezel was now thirty-three years old and he had never missed a day of sharpening Klaus. Diezel liked it nice and sharp. Very sharp. He thought about all the things he’d gutted out and killed since the first day he and Klaus had become one: cats, dogs, raccoons, Uncle Memo, Mom, Dad, and of course his sister, Adelita. Oh! He always forgot about the homeless man he found rooting around in his trash in the back alley. “I always forget about ese pendejo,” he thought. There were others he chose to forget because they never mattered to him, like the homeless guy. He had lost count. The earthquake in 1987 had knocked out the power in 5 counties and he was overworked, angry, and needed a release. The homeless guy sleeping in back of the motel he was staying at for the job became just the “release” he had needed.

Lately, Diezel started thinking about his sister. He didn’t want to go there. He shook his head in the incoming darkness as if having a discussion with another person and growled, “Fucking bitch asked for it with those fucking accusing eyes.” He often told himself this. However, Adelita was the one person in his life he regretted killing. Beneath his cruel veneer, when all was said and done, he missed her. Killing her was his only regret.

Adelita was a few years younger than him. She had always known his secret. She caught him pulling the entrails out of the neighbor’s cat when he was fourteen. He had been rubbing the blood over his hands pretending he was washing them with soap as he was enjoying the slick hot warmth of the blood. For some reason, Diezel had a growing fantasy about calling himself “The Butcher,” especially when he performed such atrocities, and there were many. But she never said anything. He had caught her looking through the bougainvilleas and he remembered the fright in her eyes, then she turned and ran inside the house. He just laughed as he watched her run away, but anger festered inside of him the rest of the day, not because he was caught, but Diezel was angry because she saw how he enjoyed what he was doing. Her seeing the joy in his face really bothered him.

When he passed her in the hallway he blocked the entry into her bedroom with his body. He loomed over her and took advantage of his height to further intimidate. It didn’t take much since Adelita was terrified of him. She didn’t look up at him but stared at the floor. Still looking down she said, “I didn’t see anything, Diezel. You are my brother and I love you.” Her innocence, her love for him, made him seethe even more. He hit her head on the door jamb so hard she was knocked unconscious and he left her where she fell like a rag doll. Diezel knelt over her. He could feel her soft warm breath as if she was just in deep slumber. He bent so that his mouth was nearly touching her ear. He growled,

“If you say anything to anyone I’ll fucking do to you what you saw me doing to that pinche gato!” His words stunned him and left him shaking but he felt no remorse about what he had just done.

Diezel and Adelita had pretty much raised themselves. Their parents had been farmworkers. They came from a long list of descendants of the first Baja field hands in Alta California, the indigenous stock dating back to the 1700s. Working for the Franciscan missionaries in what was then called “New Spain.” It had been a wild frontier and it had been cultivated by his field-hand ancestors. His father had told him the stories of his heritage countless times, much to his aggravation. Diezel would sit there and roll his eyes wondering when his old man would shut the fuck up. His parents left the house early and came home late. They were gone now. The stories have stopped. Dead. Fucking dead.

“Such is life in the barrio! You fucking pieces of shit.” Diezel sat there grumbling in agitation. “Thank you for giving us Drunk Memo!”

The hate he felt for Drunk Memo bubbled inside Diezel like a cancer. It consumed him. He could feel it, relish it. It was a throbbing organism — a parasite — that fed off his anger and hatred. It was a rabid and caged animal which he enjoyed feeding morsels of acrimonious animosity.

Whenever he was in that dark place he would find himself getting angrier and agitated. He needed to find a release for that pent up gurgling volcano. His Uncle Memo had begun raping him when he was nine years old and nobody cared. Nobody. Memo was the family drunk. He would “volunteer” to babysit the kids whenever Diezel’s parents got a janitor contract on the weekends to supplement their farm working incomes. It wasn’t much but they never lacked for beans or rice.

Drunk Memo was the nickname everyone in town called Guillermo Gonzalez. He was Diezel’s father’s younger brother who had been imprisoned for several years for repeated petty and auto thefts. He had lost his eye during a prison riot and walked stooped over from another prison fight injury. He spoke with a growl and never had a kind word to say to anyone.

Once, Diezel overheard a discussion between his father and Uncle Cuko that he never forgot. The two brothers had been sitting in the backyard drinking beers looking at the pastel pink and velvet clouds of a waning sunset. They were disturbed and embarrassed by some things they heard from neighbors about their perpetually drunk brother, Memo. Recently, he was seen beating a teenage kid in the back alley of the drive-thru liquor store. Then, later that same evening, he walked the main drag yelling “Fuck You!” to people driving by and caused an accident when he threw an empty beer bottle at a car. As a result, local community members were canvasing the neighborhoods demanding that something must be done to maintain peace and safety in the streets. The brothers realized Memo was the pariah of the community even though they didn’t say his name outright.

“Our hermano sweats bitterness,” said Diezel’s father as he shook his head in disappointment still looking up at the sky,

“He must have nine lives.”

Uncle Cuko nodded in agreement. “Cosa mala nunca muere.” He said as he exhaled cigar smoke.

“True, a bad thing never dies,” his father repeated in low tones.

“What do you think made him like that?”

“That pinche carbón was always like that even when we were kids,” burped Uncle Cuko, then he spit in anger into the brass spittoon between their lawn chairs.

After that, all that could be heard were the cicadas in full concert which accompanied barking alley dogs and distant sirens. Nothing else was said and both men just sat in silence looking off in the distance, lost in their own thoughts. Diezel was about ten years old at the time and had already been silently suffering from sickening abuse by Drunk Memo. He felt a pit in his stomach at the sheer terror of Drunk Memo. His Uncle Cukos’s and father’s words echoed in his mind like a scratched record slowing echoing farther and farther away,

“Cosa mala nunca muere,

Cosa mala nunca muere,

A bad thing never dies,

A bad thing never dies.” He remembered covering his ears to make the words stop, and then ran to hide under his bed.

When Drunk Memo was released from prison he had been unable to find work so he had eked out a living buying and selling junk and scrap iron. He spent most of his money on the drink which then turned him into a ‘mean drunk.’ He was always fighting with someone in town and people were getting pretty tired of his outbursts. Drunk Memo lived not far from Diezel and his family in a dilapidated trailer, which was littered with trash and junk and broken cars. Yet, his parents trusted Drunk Memo because he was “family.”

Life back then had been so dreary and bleak that when Diezel thought of those dark times he would lose himself in his anger and frustration. The evidence of this was in the walls. The holes were covered up by cheesy felt paintings and Aztec calendars from the local panadería. The bakery shop’s calendars were a community favorite because of the beautiful Mexican artwork which just about everyone used to adorn their walls at home even as the calendars became outdated. The evidence of the punched out holes in the walls throughout the house were covered by these outdated cheap felt paintings and faded calendars. The angry evidence at what his hateful uncle had been doing to them was unspeakable. It had gone on for years.

Once, Drunk Memo had attacked Adelita immediately after finishing with Diezel. His eyes were swollen shut from a violent beating. The stench of drunken sweat and body odor permeated his nostrils, and his vision was severely blurred, however, he could hear his sister’s screams in the next room. He was small then, his hormones had not burst to life with the height and strength he now possessed.

Slowly, and in utter pain with each breath from the fresh sodomy, Diezel recalled feeling his way to the kitchen and grabbed his mother’s favorite cast iron skillet and carried it back to Adelita’s room. The door was ajar and he quietly let himself into the room. The animal was heaving heavily on top of his little sister. In his drunken state he did not hear young Diezel enter the room. He lurched behind Drunk Memo and whacked him in the back of the head with all of his might with the skillet. The hollow thud of the impact left Drunk Memo slumped heavily on top of his smothering sister.

Diezel thought he had surely killed the pedophile, but “cosa mala nunca muere.” He pushed Drunk Memo off of her little bruised body then helped her dress. Then, both dragged his body to the back door steps, ran back inside, bolted the doors and windows, and hoped he would never wake from unconsciousness.

Such was the life of the two children. “Just another fucking day in the life” became Diezel’s mantra. Drunk Memo never knew what hit him that day. He just woke up from lying on the ground several hours later that night and hobbled home down the street and slept for 3 days. But the fucker never died. “Cosa mala nunca muere.” The kids felt the horror of his pedophilia was the beast, the monster, a recurring nightmare. It would happen again. And it did.

The last time Uncle Memo tried to hurt him was his last time. Diezel was 16 years old and tired of sucking Uncle Memo’s cock. Drunk Memo showed up at the house and Diezel followed him to the back yard, dropped to the ground and slashed his left achilles tendon and watched the drunken bastard crumble and writhe on the dirt and weeds. Diezel swiftly taped his mouth shut with duct tape wrapping it around and around his head and face really tight that it dug into his skin; then, he threw the garbage bag over Drunk Memo’s head so he didn’t have to look at his stupid one red eye. Diezel straddled him as he suffocated Drunk Memo until he stopped moving. Diezel’s heart was pounding like a hammer and his adrenaline was peaking full tilt. He was so excited that he got a huge hard on and then he remembers laughing and looking up into the clear blue sky. He felt free as a soaring bird, man!

‘Fuck I want to feel that way again like I felt that first time!’ he thought. He relished that thought on a daily basis. He lived for that feeling.

Lately, he was obsessing over how he would off his next victim, Brandi Myers. She grew up in the barrio with he and Adelita. The two girls had been best friends and later, lovers. That pissed Diezel off to no end.

Growing up he had fantasized about Brandi. There were many nights in bed he would play with his cock, squeezing the shaft until it hurt. He fondled his balls until he was so hard it hurt to feel so good. He imagined Brandi sucking him off while he forcefully held her head down. He would fiercely whisper to himself in the darkness, “Suck my huge cock, fucking cunt!” He was sure she had initially wanted him. Or at least liked him, but that was so long ago it was just vague fantasies.

He had always felt Adelita’s jealousy over his infatuation for the long-legged, long-haired half-Mexican, half-gringa. He could feel Brandi’s eyes on him when they were teenagers. He imagined so anyway. Every time the two girls whispered and giggled into each other’s ear he felt they were talking about him and how much Brandi liked him. Did that even happen? Did she ever have a crush on him? Were they really just laughing at him? He thought about all these things. Of course, he was deluded. Brandi really despised Diezel. Somehow he realized it but liked to twist things around in his mind.

One day, he went to the Red Garter titty bar to watch Brandi dance. Once, when Diezel was a kid riding with his Uncle Cuko in his Chevy pickup his Uncle told him the Red Garter had been around since the bootleg days. Of course it had changed throughout the years but it had always served as a safe haven for the misunderstood, cheaters, businessmen, and shady types.

He had said, “Mijo, that place has always been a raunch roadhouse. You stay away from there when you get older. Don’t ever let me find out you went into that joint.” Every time Diezel went into the Red Garter he remembered Uncle Cuko’s words. He always thought to himself as he walked through the doors, “Sorry Uncle Cuko.”

He felt her eyes on him when he first walked in, yet she ignored him the whole time he was there. He watched her sidle up to every other man in the damn place but he was invisible to her. He sat there watching her grind up against the man next to him and he seethed, so much so, that it made his temples pound. Burgeoning bile creeped up his throat and made him even angrier. That was quite enough, puta!

Brandi watched Diezel shoot up off his chair in anger and thought “Oh shit, why did I do that?” She watched him lunge for her as she was finishing her thought,

I know that fucker killed Adelita, she thought.

Diezel grabbed her by the hair. The guy she was grinding on began to say, “What tha…” But then a huge knuckle met his face before he could finish his sentence.

Still holding Brandi’s hair he straightened up and glared at the two approaching burly bouncers and said,

“I have to talk with my sissster.”

His menacing look reflected in the cruel obsidian eyes and the two men slowly backed away from the giant and one of them said,

“Ok bra, take it outside. We don’t want any trouble in here or we are calling the police.”

With that, Diezel let go of Brandi and pushed her toward the entrance out into the cold night.

He leveled his feelings in order to control his temper. He liked to pretend to be oblivious of his good looks. He was a big guy at six foot four with jet black hair and dreamy long-lashed eyes that went well with a chiseled face. That is how people saw him at first glance. However, after a second look, a whole other face would appear that left them startled because the jutting jaw and knitted brows shot forth and overpowered anything that seemed attractive at first encounter. His massive power-lifting muscles did not help to offset the stares of the men at the perimeter of the stage, nor of the women on the poles as he pushed Brandi out in front of him.

What began with the violent pull of hair inside the joint became an angry test of wills between the two outside.

“Mother fucker! What the fuck do you want with me, Diezel?!”

Her long brown hair with golden highlights fell partially across her face as the wind swirled around them and made her appear childlike, pouty, and vulnerable. One of her heaving breasts exposed a nipple ring where the glittery tassel had fallen off.

“I just needed to see you, to talk with you.” He said calmly. He tried to suppress his anger. He stared at her slender neck thinking he could easily snap it like a twig with one of his huge hands.

“Listen Dieze, if you EVER come around here again those fuckers inside will not let you in. I’ll make sure of it. I need this fucking job! Do you understand? Go home. I’ll call you tomorrow morning.” Her half naked body was trembling from the frigid air, the fucker can’t be a gentleman and give me his denim jacket, she thought, stupid fuck.

“Brandi, I want you bad. I’ve wanted you since we were kids.”

“Well, I don’t car…”

“Shut up and don’t interrupt me.” He said with a reverberating deep growl that she suddenly felt the heat of terror creep up her legs, constrict in her chest, and she no longer felt the icy and howling wind beating around her.

“Now you listen real good. I’m only going to say this one time.” He paused and looked at her with evil menace,

“Quit telling people around town that I killed Adelita. You got that?” His black eyes bore into her soul as he spoke with a calm expressionless conviction.

“You think I don’t know what the fuck you’re going around telling people? Bitch, this is a small town. So small I know Carl from the tire shop paid you a hundred and fifty dollars last Sunday to fuck you in the assss.” The word ‘ass’ sounded like a hiss to her. Snakelike and evil. He paused when he saw her green eyes widen and dilate to a hazel color beneath the street lamp.

“Yeah, you think that’s a fucking secret, cunt? I was on call Sunday working on the electrical lines up Eighth Street because the storm knocked out the power at that fucker’s shop. He and all his cronies were talking about it.”

He hissed, “Disssgusting cunt! Fucking lesssbo taking money, and getting fucked in the assshole.” The habit of elongating his S’s only served to emphasize the cruel effect of his words on her. She remembered he had also spoken with the same cruelty to Adelita many times.

She couldn’t bear his gravelly voice anymore. She wanted to cover her ears. She spit in his face just to shut him up but got no reaction out of him. She stood there and watched her spittle ooze down his cheek. They both stood there glaring at each other: he, with a calm confident cruelty, and she, with a lagging bravado that was slowly dissipating and making her weak by the second.

“Listen, I need the money, Diezel. I have a habit I’m trying to kick but I’m just not there quite yet.” She paused, then continued,

“Ever since Adelita disappeared.”

She stared off into the night and then she let out a deep sigh. “I need to get back in. I’m freezing. I’ll call you tomorrow. And quit leaving me messages with your heavy breathing. If you call and leave a message say something. Fucking weirdo!” Then she walked away.

Years ago, Adelita had unfolded the sad story she and her brother’s had lived as children. She grew up with them in the same neighborhood but never realized the extent of what they had endured. Adelita had told her about Drunk Memo. She also told Brandi about how Diezel had made her help him dig a hole in their back yard the night her drunk uncle was murdered. It was difficult for her to envision the brother and sister doing what they had to do to survive. Like Adelita, Brandi was terrified of Klaus.

Fucking Klaus, she thought.

She had been happy that Drunk Memo was killed. She had always been terrified of that evil drunkard. Diezel had taken very good care of his little sister all those years ago. But something had changed in him the day he had brought home that fucking blade. Adelita was terrified of it. The dynamic between the three of them changed that next day, after his thirteenth birthday.

As they grew older the closeness of the two girls developed into a deep love which began forming after some sophomoric experimental kissing. They found comfort in each other. Soon after that, they wanted to be together, forever. They made plans. They felt safe in each other’s arms. Brandi’s childhood was filled with similar abuse, inflicted by her mother’s special “boyfriends.” Their plans would take them far away from there to begin a new life. They wanted to be far away from the nightmare of their childhood.

Once in bed, Adelita had told Brandi about the dream she had the night Diezel brought Klaus home. Adelita wasn’t sure it was a dream but that is what she called her “vision,” or whatever it was.

In Adelita’s dream a Nazi era soldier stood over Diezel’s bed. She described to Brandi the vapory German Nazi solder with the swastika clearly visible on the uniform. The soldier was staring at Klaus with his dead eyes, never taking his eyes off the cold blade. In the dream, the room became frosty and so cold. Diezel had fallen asleep with his hand on the bayonet still in the scabbard. He held it tightly as if it generated heat to keep him warm. A vapor rose out of it and curled over the sleeping Diezel. It swirled around the boy and the ghostly figure in a symbolic binding. It slowly took the shape of the blade itself and shimmered with evil serrated edges that looked to her like gnashing teeth. Faster than her blinking eyes could see, the ghost blade dove deep into Diezel’s head. Immediately, no, simultaneously after, the soldier evaporated right into the blade in the boy’s hand like a genie diving back into its bottle.

That was her “dream.” Adelita never forgot it because the next day when she looked and talked with Diezel she knew he was forever changed. It was visible in his eyes. They were cruel and dead. From that day forward, Diezel spoke in a slow enunciating monotone, expressionless and without inflection, lifeless, like the eyes of the Nazi she had seen standing over her brother. Adelita told Brandi it was not a dream. She really did see a spectre standing over her brother’s bed. Somehow, she was made to see this “violation” that happened to her brother. Yet another rape in their gruesome life of horrific secrets. With this secret spoken, Adelita, finally admitted the truth: that Diezel was possessed with an evil spirit. She begged Brandi not to think badly of her brother. Nightly, she begged God to help her brother and for his salvation. Brandi had told her prayers would never help but promised never to say anything to anyone.

Diezel was unaware Adelita had told Brandi their secrets. It never occurred to him that she would ever know so much. But he was mistaken. After their parents disappeared and supposedly abandoned them, she should have called the authorities, but Adelita had begged her not to do that. When her beautiful and gentle Adelita disappeared she became so filled with anguish and sorrow that the only thing that made her forget was the siren call of the heroin and she eventually sought for comfort. After that, it just didn’t matter anymore. Her angel was gone. Her love. She just longed to get lost in the haze of her memory of being with the one person that had ever mattered to her.

When Diezel tried to see her or speak with her she would threaten to call police if he didn’t leave her alone. For Brandi, nothing mattered anymore. Her gentle angel was not here to take her away from what she had become: a drug addict and a whore.

Straight up, this is my reality, she thought sadly.

Brandi somehow felt sucked into the horror which once belonged only to Diezel and Adelita. She felt mired in quicksand and she was helpless to get out. She was sinking slowly.

“Fuck, I need to get out of this town and from that sick psychopath.” She knew he kept tabs on her. She had heard as much from friends.

Diezel watched Brandi amble back inside the Red Garter. He hated it when she mentioned his sister, Adelita. He didn’t want to think about her or what he did to her. He kept that buried deep inside. Adelita’s mummified body was in the wall between the dining room and the kitchen. Upright, she was wrapped tightly with a couple of shower curtains, and lots of duct tape. First, Klaus had carved out her heart. Regardless of how terrified she had been of him he knew she loved him. Somehow, he knew. Because of that, he had gently laid the heart in his mother’s wooden jewelry box, sealed it tightly with a whole roll of his beloved duct tape. He loved to buy rolls of that shit. It was his killing staple which he always used on all of his victims. He buried the heart beneath the weeping willow tree in their back yard, among the bones of their parents.

Adelita had told neighbors their parents had moved to Mexico to take care of family. That was a lie. Always lies. Klaus had also cut out Adelita’s eyes. He hated the terrified and accusing way she had always looked at him. He eagerly carved those big brown eyes out of her head and ground them in the disposal with cold water as he washed his hands with soap. Diezel never wanted those eyes to look at him ever again.

He let rage overtake him because it made him feel strong. He turned and walked to his black Silverado truck. He waited after Brandi went inside to finish her shift. He sat in his truck for hours watching the entrance of the titty hall. He never took his eyes off the double doors. Not once. She did not call him the next day.

Of course he did not stop stalking Brandi. She knew it and saw him or his truck everywhere she went. One day, soon after the Red Garter incident, she walked out of Ralph’s supermarket and saw him standing next to her old and tired 1996 Acura.

She let out a deep sigh and said, “What do you want, Diezel?” She glared at him through her dark sunglasses.

“I need to talk with you,” he muttered looking left then right as if he was guilty of something. She realized he was there to kill her.

“Not now, dammit, I’m really tired and want to go home to eat something and then sleep.”

“Okay, let me follow you home and I’ll make you something to eat and while you eat we can talk. Just for a few minutes. This is important.” He spoke with pleading eyes. Yet, they looked menacing, but Brandi figured he couldn’t help that.

“Alright then, follow me. But only for a few minutes.”

She got in the car and as she drove home looked at his silhouette through her rear view mirror, thinking, “Fucking bastard wants to kill me. I just know it.”

She screamed into the mirror, “I’m ready for you asshole!”

He held her two grocery bags in each arm as she held the door open for him. Silently, they both walked into the kitchen as she tiredly plopped into a dining chair.

With his back to her, she said,

“Okay, I want two eggs, over easy, and two French toast.”

She appraised his giant muscular form as he silently and gracefully emptied the groceries on the kitchen counter.

“You got it milady,” he said without turning.

Brandi watched him open cupboards and prepare her meal in silence. As the butter sizzled in a pan her eyes glided to Klaus hanging from his belt on his side hip.

She said, “Can I look at your knife, Dieze?”

Diezel looked over his shoulder and grumbled,

“I don’t let anyone touch it. What will you give me for letting you hold my Klaus?”

She softly stated, “I’ll give you what you always wanted.”

He raised is eyebrows in surprise and said, “Oh yeah, and what is that, pray tell?” he smirked teasingly.

“I don’t know, I’m tired, I need a shower. I’m starving. How about we take a shower after you feed me and I’ll let you tuck me into bed. How ‘bout that?”

Brandi thought, “chill, don’t be too nice or he’ll figure you out.”

Diezel thought a moment but his desire became evident in his pants,

“Okay, but be careful, it’s extremely sharp.”

“I have a Kershaw. I may look girly but I know how to handle a weapon like that. Give it here.”

He unsnapped the old leather straps from his belt and handed Brandi the blade still in the scabbard.

He lisped, “A Kershaw is nice but thissss, thissss blade is very ssssspecial.”

She pulled Klaus out of its sheath and whispered, “Oh I know, I know.” Then barked,

“Hey! Don’t burn my eggs!”

He turned around to his cooking and left Brandi to what he thought was admiring his greatest possession.

To her horror, the blade’s handle suddenly felt hot to the touch. It felt as if she was holding a hot burning coal in her hands. She swallowed a scream that wanted to escape her lips, or was it bile? Like a magnet the blade did not drop to the floor when she opened her hand. Her fingers closed around the searing handle as if someone, or something, was controlling her hand. Mechanically, she stood up and looked at Diezel’s back.

Was she dreaming? She saw Adelita standing next to her brother with her hand on his shoulder as he whipped a bowl of eggs for her French toast.

Brandi wanted to scream, or cry, at the sight of a shimmering Adelita standing there looking at her with a smile on her face. “Kill him” she mouthed.

The blade in Brandi’s hand began to quiver and felt like it wanted to fly out of her hand. Brandi flew at him, and the sharp blade drove into the back of his big neck, at the base of his head, all the way to the handle.

All of the sudden the excruciating noise of the sizzling food, of dogs barking in the alley, and a blaring radio from a neighbor’s house, entered her ears in a deafening blast. She crumbled to the floor with her hands to her ears crying out in pain. She looked up and saw Diezel slumped over the hot stove as burning flesh, blood, and eggs hissed and emitted a sickening odor. Her eyes searched around frantically for Adelita but knew she was gone for good. She knew in her heart that Adelita could now rest in peace because her brother was set free.

Brandi was never charged for Diezel’s death which was ruled in self-defense.

***

Eventually, with Brandi’s testimony, Adelita’s heart, her parents, and Drunk Memo were dug up from the back yard. Adelita’s mummified body was eventually found within the dining room wall of the house. The authorities attributed some other murders to Diezel but still needed to reopen some cold case files and further investigations were now set in motion.

Months later, Brandi laid flowers at Adelita’s headstone. Diezel and parents were buried on either side of her. All were now at rest.

“Time to start a new life,” she said to no one in particular, “I’ll make you proud, honey,” she said as she looked up at an endless orange and violet sky. The beauty of the ending day made her feel at peace.

Klaus was also laid to rest, in a plastic bag, and filed on a shelf in the police evidence room.

It waits, because cosa mala nunca muere. A bad thing never dies.